Book 3: The Night and the Day
by ReverendKilljoy
Summary: "After Chosen" trilogy. Buffy and an old friend meet again after many changes in their lives. Romance. COMPLETE. Includes XD, FRW pairings and extensive backstory. A look at what it means to fight the dark, and to live in the day.
1. Prologue and disclaimers

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Night and the Day

by RevrendKilljoy

_Disclaimers:_

_Based on wholly or partly on characters and situations created by Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, Kazui-Sandollar, 20th Century Fox Television and who knows what others. PG-13: An unauthorized work of speculative fiction with some adult situations and sexual content, graphic language, brief nudity and mature themes. Parental discretion is advised. Do not distribute for profit or without notification please. Not to be taken internally. No user serviceable parts inside. Made in the USA. Any resemblance to actual people, living, dead, or Canadian, is purely intentional because I thought it would be funny. They can't take the sky from me. Strongest fanfics available without a prescription. May cause dizziness, dry mouth or nausea. Do not read my fanfics while driving, drinking or operating heavy machinery._

Prologue:

There was a piece of paper in the man's shirt pocket, good quality paper folded for mailing, then in half again. The paper was worn and hard to read where the folds had rubbed almost through the page. On the paper were slowly fading the following words:

Dear Applicant:

We are sorry to inform you that we are unable to grant your application for re-admission to the University of California system at this time, for the reason(s) listed below:

Your Form DD295, Evaluation of Learning Experiences During Military Service, was not verified by the Department of Defense Liaison Office, as they would not confirm your service and/or terms of discharge.

Your Form DD214, Discharge Summary, was not completed as required by state admissions guidelines in the particulars of dates of service, branch of service, induction date, discharge date, and terms or conditions of discharge.

Your transcripts from UC-Sunnydale were not recovered following the regrettable loss of the local Sunnydale campus archive. State records do show your admission to the Psychology program as you indicate. However, your final assessment from your faculty advisor, Dr. Margaret Walsh, is incomplete, so we are unable to assess at this time your appropriate placement in the graduate programs of the University of California system.

We are very sorry that we are, as a result of the item(s) listed above, unable to extend re-admission to you at this time. We suggest that you take the following actions and re-apply within 60 days of the date of this letter for further consideration for the next academic year:

Resolve any sections of your DD214 and DD295 currently marked as "classified," or "unavailable," or left blank by the Department of Defense representative.

Contact Dr. Walsh and have her complete your TA assessment and file it with the Graduate Records office of her home campus or the campus to which you are applying, and notify us in writing of her filing.

Please call our Ombudsman's office if we may assist you further. Thank you for your interest in the University of California.

Office of the Registrar

University of California

On the other side of the paper, the outside as it was folded, was a note in neat handwriting. It was considerably shorter, but perhaps much more important to the man who had written it than the paper it was written on.

"A New Dawn Construction- Carlos, Tues. AM. Bring letter from Graham's dad and picture ID."

The man drove his white Suburban along I-15, leaving the dust of Mexico behind at a 24-hour carwash in San Diego. Without traffic, he'd be in Lago Vista by first light. The mile markers marched by in the darkness like sentries on an endless patrol. Southern California, without traffic. He patted the note in his pocket and laughed a cruel dry laugh.


	2. Part I

I.

Buffy Anne Summers sat in the window seat of the airliner, looking down at the darkening clouds below her. She had been due at her sister's house almost two hours ago, but now it looked like she might not even be landing at the right airport. Some of the other passengers seemed nervous. Buffy sighed, and closed the window shade on the occasional flashes of lightning below.

Turning her iPod on a random shuffle, she skipped across songs and years and closed her eyes. There wasn't anything in the flight to scare her. She sometimes wondered if she'd had the 'scared' scared out of her at some point in her life. Being the vampire slayer, back when being a slayer still meant being THE Slayer, the Chosen One, 'one girl in all the world…' Chosen to see her loved ones die, her friends tortured, her own soul torn away and stuffed back in all bumps and corners.

Now, she was the head of the Slayers' Council, the Old Lady who all the new faces turned to. If it weren't for Giles' help, she'd have run- she'd have let it fall apart. Now that there were some more well-to-do slayers in the world, the Council was rebuilding its funding trust. It didn't match the almost limitless resources of the old Watchers' Council it had replaced, but there was enough. Enough to train the new slayers as each was called, enough to reach out and make sure that no girl ever again felt the crushing weight of knowing that she was the world's only hope. Enough for the Old Lady to not worry about the bills every day, at least.

She had been working hard, putting aside the play, the shopping, and the lying on the beach in the Côte D'Azur with that very nice young man from Holland. Belgium? Somewhere, anyway, where they taught English very precisely with a lovely little lilt to it. She realized she'd been working too hard, maybe.

It was going to be more work back in the States, she knew. Dawn was expecting and due basically any day, and as much as Xander was going to be helping, he didn't have any more practice at this than Dawn did. Buffy at least had the memories of helping her mother with Dawn.

Funny, the memories of those days were as fuzzy as any of the memories of Dawn older than the day the monks created her and put her history into everyone's head. But to Buffy, they seemed real. A lot more real than the dim knowledge that Buffy had actually been an only child till she was in high school, she thought.

The memories were real because Dawn was real, and now she was going to be a real mom. The idea still seemed pretty farfetched to Buffy, some elaborate joke that Xander was playing on them all. Surely her baby sister wasn't a grownup woman, with a job tutoring languages at the college, with a house and a garden and baby due.

Maybe Buffy could have had that, had things worked out differently. Well, not the tutoring part. While not a bad student at all, and while possessing a certain flair for expressing herself that had served her well in high school, Buffy knew she did not have the natural gifts for languages that Dawn did. Or were they supernatural gifts? They'd never really pushed Dawn too hard to test her abilities, which made her something of a wild card.

Buffy tried to imagine herself in her sister's place, living a life more or less ordinary. Paying the bills, having friends over for cookouts, shopping for things for the baby- it all seemed so out of reach to Buffy.

Her iPod grabbed another song from its hard drive and she heard the opening notes of Sophie Zelmani's "I'll Remember You." Buffy scrambled for the remote, finally pulling the ear buds out of her ears rather than try to change the song. She always meant to remove that song, always swore she would never listen to it again, but never somehow got around to deleting it.

It was the song that had been playing, in Sunnydale, at the Bronze, when Angel had kissed her for the first time. Even after everything that had happened, it made her uncontrollably weepy and girly to hear it. Angel, Spike, the Immortal- she never did find anyone who she could have really been with, did she? Sometimes she looked at Giles and wished he were twenty-five years younger. Well, twenty. Maybe ten. That's when she knew it was time for a little break.

White picket fence, slippers on her feet after a hard day slaying, and a dog in the yard… Not a picket-fence candidate around was there? There never had been. No one to put the 'girl' back into the 'one girl in all the world…'

Well, there was one, she admitted to herself. Bad timing. She'd been too busy figuring out what it meant to be the slayer, and he'd had his own issues to deal with, his own mission to find. Then the big dolt went and got married. Worse, he'd married a smart, strong beautiful girl with a great smile and her own black helicopter. How unfair is that?

With a lurch and a series of random bumps, the airliner began its overdue decent towards Los Angeles. Buffy leaned her head against the window shade, lost in her musings as her music player droned the next song thinly through the ear buds dangling from their cord. The plane left the sunshine and slipped into the dark clouds below.


	3. Part II

II.

Xander Harris was running his fingers of his right hand nervously over the face of his watch. He did that a lot lately. If he wasn't wondering how far he was from his wife, he was wondering how far his wife was from the hospital. He rubbed the watch dial with his fingertips again.

After he lost his left eye to Caleb, the minion of the First Evil, Xander had found that he was always reaching across his body to read his watch. After trying to get used to wearing it on the right side, he'd finally given up and learned to read a Braille watch. As he watched the arrivals information, changing with the thunderstorms that surrounded the airport this morning, he was threatening to rub his watch smooth.

"Xander," his wife said from behind him, "can you sit? You're making me tired, watching you pace like that."

"Sure, Dawn," he told her, eye still scanning the monitor for any sign that his sister-in-law's plane might be arriving soon. They had already driven from one terminal to another as the gates changed due to weather delays.

"Why can we build billion dollar bombers that are invisible, but we can't land in the rain?" He sat down next to Dawn, and patted her arm. They were always touching, just little gestures. It had started for him when he lost his eye- Dawn always made sure he knew where she was on his blind side. For her, she just liked Xander touching her.

She got heavily to her feet, her breath whoofing out as she levered herself up in stages. She began an ungainly pacing of her own. Xander looked at her in confusion.

"Hello, sitting?" He indicated her empty chair. "You know, by where you've been till I actually sat down?"

"Can't sit any more." She folded her hands over her belly, resting them on top of the taut skin of what had until fairly recently been a slender stomach. He often found her, unconsciously cradling her growing belly in her arms, or resting her hands atop the baby. "She keeps rolling over like she's at the end of her lane in a swim meet. Every time she does, it's with a kick turn off my bladder."

"You need to go again?" In his worry about the flight he let some frustration and a bit of disbelief show through. "You really need to go? They might change gates again any time."

She wrinkled her nose at him in what she hoped was still an endearing way. "Xander, I'm four days now past my forty weeks. I need to go again before my hands are washed from the last time. I'll be right back."

"Okay, but keep listening for gate changes," Xander said squeezing her hand briefly. As soon as she'd waddled over to the ladies' room he was up out of his seat and pacing.

Of medium height, and getting a little spare tire from Dawn's rapidly improving cooking and too much time spent behind a desk, Xander was still a powerfully built man. He didn't have the supernatural strength and zero body fat of some of the warrior types he'd run into over the years, but he still put in enough time on the job sites to stay strong. Twice weekly kendo training with Robin Wood wasn't hurting him either. His fingertips wandered to his watch again. Buffy's plane was now almost three hours late.

"Attention, this is a gate change announcement…" As soon as Xander heard Buffy's flight number called, he grabbed the little bouquet of daisies they'd brought to welcome Buffy, and Dawn's jacket and umbrella.

He felt a hand on his shoulder and turned. "Honey, it's time," Dawn said calmly.

He nodded, putting out his arm for her. "Yeah, and of course it's way down the other end of the terminal. The plane's already on the ground, so we better book if we want to meet her at the baggage check."

"I said, 'Honey, it's time,' Xander," Dawn's voice was clipped, almost brittle.

"Yeah, I heard the call, let's…" Xander looked down at his wife's distended belly, the sunflower print strained over her. "…go? It's time. It's time. 'Time,' time? As in, 'It's time' time?" Dawn nodded, and he noticed that though her voice had been controlled, her eyes were very wide indeed and she was glistening with a thin sheen of sweat on her forehead.

"It's time!" Xander called to a group of Korean schoolgirls passing by, all in their uniforms and hair ribbons. He dropped the flowers, and the coat and umbrella, and kissed Dawn suddenly and firmly on her mouth. She tasted minty.

"Okay, checklist," Xander muttered, heading for the car, patting his pockets down as he went. "Cell, keys, insurance card… insurance card, okay…"

"Xander!" came the call from behind him. He spun around and saw, about eight or ten yards back, Dawn, standing by a dropped raincoat and umbrella and some daisies someone had stepped on. She had her hands on her hips and was glaring at him.

"Wife!" he exclaimed, clapping his hand to his forehead loudly, and perhaps a little too hard in his excitement. He staggered a bit and ran back to her. "Hey baby doll," he said taking her arm and grabbing their things, "that was, uh, just a little trial run. Let's get over to the hospital, okay? Everything's going to be okay, you're going to be great, and everything is going to be just great."

"You're babbling, Xander. God, I love you, but you are a crazy-person. Mom used to warn me about crazy-persons, and I didn't listen. Look where it got me." She paused, dragging him to a stop. She puffed her breath out a few times, then took a deeper breath and said, "Errrrr-uh, okay… that was another contraction. I think we better go now."

"Another? How many have you had?" He was staring at her in alarm.

"About eight strong ones or so I guess. Calm down, they're not too bad, still over ten minutes apart. Let's just get going, please?"

Thirty-five minutes later, her contractions running four minutes apart, Dawn was ushered into the hospital, and her husband managed to get her checked in and settled down in the LDR, a nice room with cheerful colors and most of the medical stuff hidden behind big hardwood cabinet doors. He was glad they had decided to deliver at the bigger hospital, even though it was farther from home. If they had been going to the med center in New Haverbrook he'd still be on the freeway, and the rain had started up again, lashing down outside as he went out to move the car.

Back at the airport, Buffy Summers stood at the baggage claim. She had her carryon bag slung over her shoulder, and a largish trunk and garment bag sitting next to her. Her eyes scanned the thinning crowd. No Dawn. No Xander. Welcome back to California, Buffy, she thought, and began dragging her suitcases out into the rain by the curb, looking for a cab.


	4. Part III

III.

Carlos looked at the man in front of him. He was tall, with broad shoulders, shaved jaw, and a neat haircut now growing out just a bit. His resume was pretty bare, but that wasn't unusual for applicants at A New Dawn Construction Co. He claimed that he'd done a lot of volunteer work in Central and South America, some housing work, a lot of jackleg engineering for disaster relief.

That wasn't unusual, either. A lot of the men and women at A New Dawn had come on board from volunteer and NGO efforts like Habitat for Humanity, the Peace Corps, and even a few International Red Cross guys. This man would not be the first new hire to be more familiar with filling sandbags than hanging drywall, but they could train him up pretty fast.

"Well," Carlos said warmly, "I have to say, you impressed Breck out there on the site. He plays at being a hick some times, but he knows his stuff. And a recommendation from Donald Graham… you worked with his son, you said?"

"We went to school together. Fraternity, campus activities, that sort of thing. We've lost touch recently, but his father told me to give you a call if I got back to the States." The man spoke with precision, his thoughts expressed clearly and without the slang so many of the younger guys used all day. It was actually sort of refreshing for Carlos. Once you got past the rough, croaking sound of his voice, or if you ignored the textured and angry scars on his neck, this guy could be on TV, like maybe a weatherman or a sportscaster or something. He had the build of an athlete and the big square jaw that TV likes.

"Recommendations are good, and your interviews have been solid. I am a little concerned at your lack of formal training in the trades… Well, Mr. Finn, normally I'd say at this point that you need to speak to Mr. Harris, and I'd get his final decision." He stood up, and Finn did the same, looking somewhat disappointed.

"I see," Finn said, sticking out his hand. "Well I thank you for your time anyhow, sir."

"Oh, I'm sorry, you misunderstand. Mr. Harris is out on family leave, and I want to get you working right away. Welcome to A New Dawn, Mr. Finn." He shook Finn's hand firmly.

"Riley," said Finn. "My friends call me Riley."

A few hours later, Carlos and Riley were eating tacos at a little place down the street from the office. Carlos was trying to explain what it was like working at A New Dawn after his previous job as a code enforcement inspector, then a liaison with Habitat.

"Let me give you an example. A little while back, the boss had us all start going to this dojo over in Anaheim. We're studying kendo, like with wooden swords and everything. It's supposed to be good for discipline, you know?"

Riley smiled briefly. "Martial arts. Discipline, inner peace, something like that?" He washed down a piece of chicken taco with a pull from his second carton of milk.

"Yeah, that's what they said to us at the time. But what makes this so cool is, we get paid for the time we go, and a couple of us even got paid time off to go to a tournament for beginners in Bakersfield a couple weeks ago. I guess when you got customers lining up like the Pirate has, you can make with the benefits."

"The Pirate?" Riley raised an eyebrow.

"Oh, sorry. I keep forgetting you haven't met the boss yet." Carlos shook his head. "I remember when he first got to town, this dude with an eye patch, and getting grey already." He touched his temples. "White almost, right here. Baby face, but the saddest guy I ever met. Starts doing odd jobs, living in some sublet out by the old box factory."

"Well, in two years, he's doing solid work, carpentry mostly, but whatever needs doing. Then all of a sudden, he's got this young girlfriend, things start dropping into his lap, and he's starting his own company. He builds them a house over in the Minear Park addition, gets a few grant projects. He's headed up and we get lifted on the rising tide. They're having a baby now, their first, so we made him take a couple weeks off."

"Sounds like quite a guy. He obviously has loyal employees." Riley was looking forward to meeting the Pirate soon. He'd have to get him a card or something for the baby.

"Hey, we all like to joke around, especially the Pirate, but he knows how to treat people. That's something none of those business schools teach, you know? Just a decent guy, and a good boss. Day ever comes he points to a hole and says, 'Carlos, I need that hole filled and I don't have time to explain why,' that's the day we all start jumping in the hole, you know what I'm saying?"

"Impressive," was Riley's only comment.

"You got to like your job to do it well, but liking the people you work with can make it all fun. You know? And Xander is an easy dude to like. We hardly ever get staff turnover."

Riley was blank-faced, a bite of taco halfway to his mouth. He realized his mouth was hanging open. "Xander. You _do_ mean Xander Harris from Sunnydale, or I'm lying right now hallucinating in a jungle in Panama, right?"

"You knew Xander back in Sunnydale? He never talks about those days, never talks about the eye either. I don't suppose you know how that happened?"

"Afraid not. He was still pretty much whole the last time I saw him. I do remember something about him doing handyman jobs or something." Riley was trying to calculate the odds. Sunnydale, you laugh at us from your grave, he thought.

"Damn, man, I was hoping you had the inside track. We got a pool going, everything from a silly string fight gone bad to alien abduction. My theory is 'pointy stick,' but I'm not married to it." Carlos finished his tea. "Speaking of married, his sister in law was coming in this morning I think, from London. Maybe you know her too?"

Riley wiped the milk mustache off with the back of his hand, and looked at the cloudy skies outside, the gusty weather. Not good flying weather. He realized he was daydreaming.

"No, if they started dating after he got here, I'm sure I don't know her." Xander, married. He thought about Sam. He missed her. He wondered what this new start would be like if she had come up with him from Panama.

"Nice girl, and the Pirate just worships the ground she walks on. They're good people." His pager was beeping, and after he paid the check, he called in.

"Yeah, just down the street. Si, si. Gracias, Carlotta." He hung up the phone, and turned to Riley who was standing behind him. Guy moved pretty smooth for a big dude. Wonder if he'd come to kendo some night? Always trying to get the new guys in the program.

"That was the office," Carlos said. "It's official- the boss is going to be a daddy. Pretty cool. Anyway, why don't you go get some rest? We start early tomorrow and something tells me you're only pretending to be awake right now."

"It was a long drive. If you talk to Xander, er, Mr. Harris, don't bother telling him about me okay? I'd like to surprise him." Finn was wondering where he'd sleep tonight. The back of the suburban had been fine, but he wasn't sure where he could park it safely now he was back in California and 'civilization' again.

"If you want, Riley. But I have to warn you- he meets everyone who does any home construction for us. No one builds a house with us he hasn't approved of, got it? He'll probably ask to meet the new hires when he gets back from leave."

"Fair enough, Carlos. I imagine he'll be surprised to see me."


	5. Part IV

IV.

Dawn was reclining in her bed, a white Styrofoam cup of ice chips in her hands, her long hair pulled back by a scrunchee, and the beads of a Buddhist rosary wrapped around one hand. She looked a little tired, and a little scared, and was the most beautiful thing Xander had ever seen.

"You missed Dr. Jowers," she told him. "He popped in and patted my arm and was very friendly, but there isn't much to do for a while."

"How are you feeling?" Xander reached up to brush a stray strand of hair from her forehead. "It's amazing. You're amazing. I just wanted to tell you that in case I forget later."

She laughed. "God, you're such a softy, Mary Sue Harris." She reached up to hold his face in her hand. "Thanks. I love you, too. So, did you run the call list?"

"Yes, ma'am. Robin and Faith are going by the house to get your overnight bag and to let out Captain Queeg. They'll put some meow-mix outside for him. He'll be fine till we get back. Carlos was doing interviews, but Charlotte promised she'd call him. Willow and Kennedy say good luck and call them as soon as we can. Kennedy is getting ready to do some big deal thing for the Slayers' Council Monday, but they'll be here before everyone leaves."

"Contraction." Dawn's brow furrowed and she lowered her head a little, trying to find a non-existent more comfortable position. "Mmm. Xander? Should have asked you, before all this. I'm sorry I did it this way."

Xander took both her hands in his and leaned, forehead to forehead with her. "Don't be. It was impulsive and selfish. But it is also the thing that makes me happiest in the world, okay? If you had asked me I'd still be worrying and planning and doubting. This way I get to enjoy all the cool benefits, and if things go badly, I can always blame you." He kissed her on the top of her head.

"Okay." She seemed to relax a little but her hands still held his very tightly. "Back to phone list. Rupert?" She was riding through the contraction, and her vise grip on his hands was beginning to loosen.

"Giles took ten minutes to say, 'Good luck.' Or at least I think that's where he was heading with it. When he started talking about the astonishing synchronicity in the cycle of life and, well, and I'm not sure what else because I tuned out at synchronicity, actually. I'm pretty sure it was, 'Good luck,' in there somewhere though."

"So you got everybody?" Dawn lay back, and her eyes closed.

Xander looked at her, and wondered what his life would be like if she hadn't come to stay with him last after her graduation, the famous Disneyland trip.

"Everybody except Andrew, not sure where he was, but I left a message for your sister to call him."

"Thanks. I'm sure that Buffy will…" Her voice trailed off. She sat up, eyes wide and face pale. "Oh, sweet goddess."

"What's wrong?" Xander knelt at her side. "Dawn, what? You need me to call the nurse?"

"Airport," came the miserable reply, as Dawn turned to him, eyes tearing up and lips quivering. "We were at the airport."

"The airport," Xander repeated dully. "Where the planes land. Where we had gone to… oh, sweet goddess." He gulped and started to grab his cell phone again. "Oh, we're not supposed to use these in here. I'm gonna duck out and call, then I'll be right back. Do not worry, don't. Everything is going to be fine."

He backed out the door still calling to her, "Don't worry about anything, it's going to be all right!" He turned and sprinted for the exit, nearly colliding with a volunteer and a little old grandma on their way to the nursery.

"Slow down, sir!" the young volunteer called after him disapprovingly.

"Fathers," said the old woman, nodding wisely. "My Tony was exactly the same. Five children, and he ran out every time, pale as a ghost and telling me not to worry, not to worry, God rest his soul."

Xander dashed out the double doors, nearly knocking down the tall black man and his dark-haired wife who were walking in.

"Xander?" said, Faith Wood, grabbing him by the arm as he dashed by.

"Hey guys. Room 2-something. Gotta run." Xander panted, trying to break Faith's iron grip on his arm. He'd spun halfway around when she'd stopped him.

"Forget something, did you? It wasn't Dawn again was it?" asked Robin Wood, chuckling. "I remember your first practice run."

"Sorry guys, really, Dawn's inside, but we forgot-" he paused, trying to catch his breath.

"Buffy?" asked Buffy, stepping out from behind Robin, arms folded in front of her but a grin on her face.

"Yes, she's at the airport," Xander said distractedly. "So I better go get her there. I mean get you there. I mean here. Uh, oh. Hello, Buffy."

Buffy shook her head sadly. "It's a good thing you've saved the world a bunch of times, Mister." She embraced him in a carefully non-bone-crushing hug. "So where's the big old pregnant lady? Or did we miss it?"

Xander led them in, but there was some issue about the number of people who could stay. Robin and Faith settled for kissing Dawn and Xander, respectively, and promised to keep everything under control at the house till they got back. Buffy just kept looking at Dawn, who was getting paler and sweatier with each contraction.

"Glad you made it, Buffy. Thanks for coming." Dawn was looking at the clock, wondering when her epidural was going to kick in. It had better kick in. If this was it for painkillers, she was in for a very long day.

"What, and risk missing you with the sweat and the puffing and the unfortunate hair? Flying monkeys couldn't keep me away." She grinned.

Dawn looked at her in disbelief. "My hair? Did you just dis my hair? Xander, why did we invite her here again?" She had a totally straight face but there was no malice in her complaints.

"Um, I believe you said howler monkeys run in the family? If we have one, my job is to give it to her to raise as her own, as I recall." Xander was offering her another tiny spoonful of ice chips.

"Dawn!" Buffy sounded shocked. "I can't believe you told him about the howler monkeys!"

"He tortured it out of me," Dawn confirmed tiredly, letting her head sink back on the pillows. "It was awful. Brutal. Hey, did you ever get an epidural? It's kind of… shiny…" She closed her eyes for a little while.

Xander turned to his second-oldest friend, a girl he still had trouble thinking of as his sister in law. "She must be doing better. Glad you're here, Buffy."

"Me too," Buffy said softly, reaching across her sister to touch his shoulder. "Torturer."

He grinned that loopy lopsided grin at her, the same one she'd seen her first day at Sunnydale High. That grin had gotten them all through so many dark times, scary times, through the years. "Howler monkey," he replied fondly.


	6. Part V

V.

Riley stopped at the motel, and looked at his wallet again, calculating. If he put off his hair cut until payday and cashed his last travelers check tomorrow, he had enough for the room tonight. It was the thought of a hot shower and a dry bed that tipped the scales. He paid at the window and hurried inside, his one bag slung under his arm.

He wasn't too wet. The rain appeared to be slackening off at last. He put his duffel bag on the end of his bed, and began stripping off his clothes. He started a shower running, and came back into the room, his 6'2" frame clad only in boxers.

He still looked good except for the wicked scars that started under his chin and stretched unevenly half way to his navel. It looked like someone had sunk a gardening fork into his throat, then made a strong effort to turn his chest into mulch. It hadn't killed him, but living through it had been more of a challenge than most things he'd done in a life overfull with challenges.

He dropped his clothes in a neat pile next to his bag, and got his shaving kit out from the duffel. He went into the bathroom and stepped into the shower. There was a muttered exclamation, something that might have been cursing, but wasn't. He came back into the small bedroom, wet feet making damp footprints on the threadbare carpet.

"Sorry, Sam," he whispered, taking a small picture of his wife out of his bag and placing it precisely on the table by the bed. "Didn't forget you, just having a long day. Hey, I'm going to see Xander Harris this week, can you believe it? I wish you'd come up, baby. He's always liked you, I think."

When he got out of the shower, he got as dry as he could with the bare towels that came with the room, and then slipped into bed. He turned out the light, and in the gloom he spoke again to Sam's picture. His voice was rough, but very low like this it almost sounded like his younger self in the dark.

"Sorry I had to come up here when I did, Sam. You know I'd have stayed with you if I could, but it was time… I miss you. I keep thinking you'll call. I guess not. I'll do what I came to do, till it's done. It's what I always do. Then maybe we'll get back together? What do you say? I love you."

The dark was quiet and close. After years of air bases and jungle nights and army barracks, it was too quiet. Riley stared at the ceiling in the dark for a long time, waiting for an answer that never came. When he slept, as he had for months, he dreamed that Sam had not stayed in Panama, and that he was happy. The morning would come too soon, as it always did.


	7. part VI

VI.

Buffy looked at her sister, about eight hours into labor and holding up reasonably well, and then looked to the door. She nodded to get Faith's attention, and patted her sister's shoulder.

"Dawn, I'm going to go check in with everybody. Faith will be right here, and I'll be right back, okay?" She sounded cheerful and calm. Dawn nodded and concentrated on relaxing her muscles as much as she could. Every time she got reasonably unwound another contraction would hit and by the time it was done she was tense again.

Faith stepped up. "Nothing to it, little D. A bit more windup, then you're gonna make the pitch, we'll have that little girl on her way, right?"

Buffy slipped out and immediately started looking for Xander. He had slipped out to get a soda and check in with Willow and Kennedy almost fifteen minutes ago, and Dawn had been asking for him.

Dawn watched the door close behind her sister, and then looked at Faith. "That's Buffy's hospital voice," she explained wearily. "That's the one she used all the time when Mom was sick. She forgets I'm not fourteen years old any more." She looked at her belly. The baby had dropped and was now noticeably lower than Dawn had been carrying before. "You'd think the big old belly would be a clue."

"Don't blame the B, Dawn," Faith said, wiping Dawn's brow with a towel. "She's never going to stop looking out for you, and worrying about you and trying to protect you. Family gets that way. That was sort of the point of all this, right?"

"Just tell Xander to come hold my hand for a while, would you?"

"Sure thing, just as soon as Buffy comes back. She'd be royal pissed if I left you all alone right now, yeah?"

"Okay." Dawn closed her eyes. She suddenly opened her eyes and looked at Faith sharply. "Hey, it's Friday. You were supposed to call me today."

"Damn, girl. No break for hard labor? You're worse than my parole officer."

"Come on, spill. Did you hear back today?" Dawn had Faith fixed in a hard but hopeful stare.

Faith reached into her back pocket, and pulled out a piece of paper. She handed it to Dawn, who scanned it briefly and cracked a big if weary smile.

"Why didn't you tell everybody you passed your GED, Faith? It's great news."

"I didn't want to take anything away, you know, like this is your big day." Faith mocked a punch on Dawn's arm. "Besides, I don't want to give you all the credit for helping me study. Oh, and don't tell Robin yet. Girl needs an element of mystery, you know?"

Outside, Buffy had collared several members of the hospital staff looking for Xander. At first she had been curious as to what had kept him, but now she was getting a sinking feeling. She was trying hard to block out memories of standing around in a particularly gruesome bridesmaid dress waiting for Xander to marry Anya. They were not comforting memories, especially with what that dress had done for her, given her complexion.

"Um, ma'am?" An orderly was waving to her. "You were looking for the dark-haired fellow with eye patch?"

"Yes, you've seen him?" She doubled back down the hallway towards the heavyset man.

"Yes, ma'am. Right through there, second door." Ma'am? What happened to "Miss," she wondered. That seemed to be happening more and more.

"Thank you," she told him and bustled through the doorway into the dimly lit room. Ahead of her, she saw Xander, his head leaning on one bench as he slumped on another.

"Xander!" she started sharply at him, "How you can you be resting? Dawn's in there doing all the work and you're in here…" She lowered her voice, seeing another man a few seats away, giving her a stern look. "You're in here, in, uh…"

"The chapel," the other young man said with lips pursed. "Do you mind?"

Xander raised his head and stood up. He nodded to the other man. "I'm finished. Sorry to bother you." He grabbed Buffy by the hand and led her out.

"Okay, that was…" Buffy was a bit flustered. She wasn't unused to saying the wrong thing, but this one felt bad. "I didn't know… well, you never… Why didn't you tell me that's where you were going?"

He stopped and looked at her. "What," he explained as if to a child, "and let your sister know that I was worried enough to go back in there for the first time since junior high? Be serious."

He started hurrying back towards the room. "Is everything okay? They were supposed to page me."

"Xander, it's fine. I'm sorry. I just didn't think that you'd be in there, okay? Dawn's okay but she misses you. I think it's close to time."

They went back into the room, and saw a nurse checking Dawn's IV. Xander moved to Dawn's side and Faith stepped back. "They just upped the pitocin. They're getting everything ready to start pushing," Faith informed them.

"Where were you Xander?" Dawn looked at him and grabbed his hand. For a carpenter he had really soft hands. She always made him use a lot of lotion when he came home from work, even on deskwork days, and he put up with it because it made her happy.

"Oh, just playing poker with the guys. Sorry I was late. I won a few hands but then the tie breaker took a while." He smiled at her and waggled his eyebrows outrageously.

"I want half your winnings," Dawn said. The next contraction hit, and it was pretty hard. She tried to breathe but it was hard not to clench up and try to shrug off the pain.

A few minutes later, they had assembled a small crew of medical people, and Faith had retreated from the room with a kiss to Xander and a bright smile that was totally lost on Dawn. Dr. Jowers, a young man with short dark hair and gorgeously manicured hands, with a bright purple scrubs top over his shirt and tie, wheeled a stool up to Dawn's feet.

Buffy stood back, feeling the helpless worry that had always hit her when her mother was in the hospital. But this was different too- this was exciting, a beginning and not an end. It made a difference. The frustrated desire to do something helpful was the same, but seeing Xander, calm and serious as she had ever seen him was oddly reassuring.

"I'm tired, Xander," Dawn admitted sadly. "I don't want to push any more."

"You're tired? You've been in bed this whole time, and I've been standing all these hours. My feet are killing me. Maybe they can find us adjoining beds?"

Buffy grinned even though Dawn did not. As she watched the baby monitor, she could see the spiking line that told her a moment before Dawn's labored breathing that another strong contraction had started.

"Okay, Dad, I want you to help her relax her arms," Dr. Jowers had the cool calm command voice thing down. Buffy wondered randomly what kind of fighter he'd have made.

"Xander?" Dawn's voice was pleading. "I changed my mind- I don't want to do this any more!"

It's about nine months late for that, Buffy thought, but Xander just kissed her on the top of her head and rubbed her arms and shoulders with his free hand.

"Just a little while more baby, just a few more pushes." He'd been saying that for a long while, it seemed to him, but he tried to say it with great conviction.

"Good, and we have hair…" Dr. Jowers was talking suddenly fast but unexcitedly, "One more good hard push, Mom. One more good push. Just like that."

"Owwww. OwwwwwwwrrrrrrrrRRRRR!" said Dawn, or something to that effect.

Very suddenly the doctor was holding a grayish pink wiggling baby covered in goo, and Xander was shouting and Buffy was shouting and Dawn was lying with her eyes half closed and her head bobbing up and down a bit with each beat of her heart. Jowers held the baby out to them. "We have a little girl, Mom, a perfect little girl. Dad, do you want to cut the cord?"

Xander paled and looked at him in disbelief, "No, I was going to leave that to the guy who's actually been to medical school. Drywall, sure. Umbilical cords, not so much!"

Dawn was panting, and trying half heartedly to sit up. The doctor showed her the baby quickly, and then handed the baby to a waiting nurse.

"Okay, almost done here, Dawn. They're going to get her cleaned up, and weighed and all that good stuff for you okay? We're going to deliver the placenta, and you need a little housekeeping down here…"'

As he was talking, a stream of calm chatter designed to help steady and reorient the new Mom and Dad as much as inform them, he took care of the afterbirth. Dawn needed one stitch where she'd torn just a little at the last. Overall, she'd done well for a slender girl on her first pregnancy. He liked the easy ones, the happy endings.

Buffy drifted over to where the nurse had taken the baby, and had inked her foot for the footprint, and done all the little pokes and prods they do to make sure they had a healthy happy baby and not a howler monkey.

The nurse was jotting something in the chart. "20 inches, and just over 6 and half pounds. That's a nice size for a young lady." She wrapped the baby in a blanket and offered her to Buffy. "Did you want to take her over to Mom?"

Buffy paled and took a half step back. "I think you better." She had supernatural strength and reflexes, and the icy nerves to stare down the apocalypse, but Buffy was terribly nervous about holding the baby. Better Xander be the one to drop her that first time, she thought.

As Buffy watched, the nurse handed the quiet swaddle to Dawn, who was looking obscenely pleased with herself as she leaned on Xander. They both peaked in at the tiny pink face under a shock of fine brown hair, and tears flowed down Xander's cheek as he held his wife and his daughter. It was such a perfect moment, a Hallmark image, that Buffy felt she was intruding. She started to head out.

"Hey," called Dawn softly, "where you going?"

"I just thought you two, you three… I'm going to go call everybody. You guys just relax." She turned to head out, and stopped. "Oh, does she have a name yet? Xander wouldn't tell me."

"Hope," Dawn said, looking at the tiny eyelashes, the little button nose the size of her pinky fingertip. "Hope Anne Harris."

Buffy stepped out, and as soon as the door closed behind her, she leaned against the wall. She cried a bit, and wasn't sure herself why she cried. When she was done, she went out and found Faith, and the two of them stood in the courtyard calling everyone and going over all the details.

When the last call was made, Faith turned to Buffy. "So," she said with a grin, "You're an aunt. How cool is that?"

Buffy grinned. "I can't begin to describe it, but I feel more weird knowing that Xander is a father than I do seeing Dawn with the baby. I hope they know what they're doing."

Faith got a more serious look, and sat Buffy down on a bench. "Trust me, B. You haven't seen them together like I have. This is so good for them, you just don't know."

"I know she loves him," Buffy said. "I mean, she had this crush on him for years. We used to tease him about it. And Xander, what can I say? He's been such a good guy, for so long, it kind of gets lost. I miss him a lot, it's not really the same in London without him there."

Buffy thought about what she'd said for a moment. Even seeing Giles and Willow all the time, something in London had been missing. She missed being loved. She wondered quietly if there was anything she could do about that.

"Okay, come on, B." Faith had hit her limit for quiet contemplation. "Let's check in, then we can get Xander home for a while. He'll go till he passes out if we don't make him lie down. He's like that about her, you know?"

"I'm starting to. Hope. I like it."

"Well," said Faith, "We got Faith and Hope, we get Charity rolling in here and I might have to actually go to mass. Can't have that."

"Oh, heavens no," Buffy said in mock horror, laughing as she went inside with the dark-haired young woman. In the back of her mind, however, Faith's comment stirred the image from earlier of Xander, head bowed in a posture of supplicating devotion in the hospital chapel. Buffy tried to recall the last time she went to a church for anything other than a refill of Holy Water.


	8. Part VII

VII.

Breckinridge, the shift leader of the framing crew, watched the big, sandy-haired new guy lifting a stack of 2x4s, sliding under them, getting them up onto his shoulder and turning with them to move to the back of the garage they were framing out. The lifting was easy, smooth and powerful, but what impressed Breck was the way the man turned with the long timbers on his shoulder. A lot of new guys had no feel for the lumber past what they could see. They were always knocking stuff over, cracking one another in the head, crap like that.

This guy, though, he moved like the 10-foot framing studs had grown on his shoulder and been there all his life. Plus, he didn't talk much, just did his work and went home. Breck liked a guy who could shoot the bull when break time came, but when he was working he liked quiet. It was the biggest difference between him and his boss, actually. Xander Harris liked to chatter, and Breck only put up with it because Xander was the boss.

Well, that and because after months of practice, Breck was only now catching up with Xander in the dojo. You'd think a dude with one eye would have a good-sized blind spot, but it was proving harder than he'd expected to beat his boss in kendo. The new guy, Finn, kind of moved that way. Disciplined.

He waited till Finn came back for the next load some time later, and motioned to him. "Heya, Riley. Over here."

Finn looked at the stack of lumber remaining to be shifted, then back at Breck. Shrugging, he ambled over to the beefy foreman. "Yes, sir?"

"Hell, save 'sir' for the guys in the ties, okay? What are you doing after work tonight- got any plans?"

"No, sir… Err, no, Breck. Got some laundry to do, and studying electrical codes." Finn had a worn guide to residential wiring in his back pocket and had been pouring over it on breaks for a few days.

Breck would hate to lose him to the electrical gang, but he recognized that Finn would most likely not be busting ass hauling frame lumber forever. A New Dawn was a pretty good outfit for promoting from within. "Still gunning for a step up to wiring monkey, huh? Ain't that a damned shame?" he added with a grin. "And here you have such a bright future moving really big piles of wood."

They both grinned.

"Anyway," said Breck, "We got kendo again tonight. I'd really like you to come by if you can make it."

Riley shifted a bit from side to side. "I'm not sure I'm interested in doing any martial arts, Breck, thanks. Kind of been there, done that, you know?" He seemed embarrassed.

"Hey, I used to box some, back in the day. This is different, and you get paid for it. I hear Xander might be coming back tonight, and I know you was hoping to meet up with him."

Actually, Riley had been putting off his reunion with Xander Harris. Too many awkward questions.

"I'm not sure he'll be glad to see me. Last time I saw him, he was in a big relationship with a girl, now he's married to someone else, new baby… Sometimes your past is better left buried." Riley's voice, always rough and raspy, sounded tired as well.

"Hey look, you gotta meet him soon anyway. Company policy- you're on the residence crews, you got to get approved by the Pirate. Just give it a try, you don't have fun, you don't come back and I wait till he's back in the office regular. Deal?"

Riley looked resignedly at the big southerner's big hand stuck out towards him. "All right," he conceded, "But you have to promise not to be upset if I'm pretty good tonight." He shook Breck's hand, and Breck laughed.

"That's what I thought, sonny boy, till Sensei Wood put the smack-down on me, but good. Think I might enjoy seeing someone else taking a nap on the dojo floor for a change."

Riley looked him up and down, hands on his hips. "I make no promises," he said.


	9. Part VIII

VIII.

Riley was both relieved and disappointed that Xander had not shown up for class. He had missed the dojo his first pass by the block and was running late when he hurried up to Breckinridge and Carlos. Just as Carlos was telling him that Xander was still home with the baby, the instructor entered.

Riley relaxed to parade rest, falling by long habit into the military posture that he could hold for hours, sound asleep, if need be. He watched the man move.

The training, he thought, is Eastern. Japanese most likely. His dress is Japanese, but the way he squares up and centers his body as he meets us, that's more Chinese. The Buddha meets the samurai, Riley decided, and bowed briefly, eyes on the tall black man with the wooden bokuto sword.

"Ah, a new student." Robin bowed and looked at the man. Big, bulky in his street clothes. He wasn't the largest man in the room, but he seemed confined. Calm face, some nasty scars on his neck. Good balance, military posture. Probably had formal training in karate, tae-kwon do, one of the quick-strike schools.

"I am Master Robin Wood, and this is my dojo. I understand you are interested in playing with us tonight, Mr…?"

"Finn, Sensei. I'll play, if you like." Riley stood impassively, betraying nothing but his discipline. The old habits came back, the old mindset, in a rush that made the hairs stand up on the backs of his hands.

"Ah, and respectful too. Tell me Mr. Finn, have you ever practiced kendo before?" Wood noted that a few of the others were cheating closer, anticipating something unusual.

"Perhaps a little, Sensei." It was hard to tell with that voice, but Finn sounded almost bored. Interesting, thought Wood.

"Student," Wood said, addressing the man to Finn's right, "Please allow student Finn your bokuto? Mr. Finn, forms, if you please?" The young man offered Finn the wooden sword.

With a languid ease, the big blond saluted, came set. First position. Move, breathe, move. Like dancing, except it was something he could actually do. If they practiced kendo on the dance floor, it would look like this. Smooth and natural, the big man suddenly was not bulky or crowded. Standing still, Riley Finn was somehow wrong. With a sword in his hands, weight moving smoothly along the floor on the balls of his feet, he was completely at ease.

"KAI!" croaked Riley, lifting to strike, but there was no down stroke, no thrust. Instead, he broke step and slapped the bokuto up in front of him, in a European fencer's salute, then tossed it back to his classmate. Wood was impressed.

"Very nice, Mr. Finn, though your execution of the final form was, shall we say, rather unorthodox. Very well class. First positions."

The next hour was full of frustrating contrasts for Robin Wood. Finn obviously moved well, and had extensive formal training. His defenses were excellent, but he bypassed chance after chance for attack. Breckinridge, who had made considerable progress for a beginner, left huge gaps in his lower quarter defenses, all of which Finn ignored.

"Okay, break. Ten minutes, then we'll talk about the demonstration over in Brockway next weekend for those who are interested." Robin caught Riley's eye. "Mr. Finn, can you hang back a moment?"

While most of the class got water, or took bathroom breaks or tended to minor bumps and sprains that come when ten or fifteen healthy construction workers whack each other with sticks for an hour, Robin turned to see his wife entering, with a phone message sheet in her hand.

"Hello," Robin said, favoring her with a bright smile. "Something urgent?"

"Just to let you to know, Xander asked if we could come over later, and if we do, bring Buffy some Diet Coke." She paused and looked at Riley who was standing dead still in front of her.

"Hey, aren't you…" she began, curious.

"Faith," hissed Riley, looking around him at the remaining students, at Faith and Robin. He took a quick step back and turned slightly, trying to put everyone in the room in front of him. "The vampire slayer," he added in an accusing rumble.

He dropped to a ready position, eyes up, and practice sword falling from his hands as he moved to a more balanced stance. His body was moving smoothly but his eyes were darting from Faith to Robin and back, and to the door behind them. There was no other visible exit to the practice room.

"Uh, no, actually, that would be me," Faith said, taking a step towards him. "You want to explain what you're doing here?"

Riley feinted a punch towards her, and then snapped a kick at her as he moved back again, trying to avoid the back corner while keeping her in front of him. She did a quick bend and dodged his kick.

"Hey, whoa!" shouted Robin, hand going to his bokuto. "What did I miss?"

Riley moved in. It would have been a fine cliché to say Robin had never seen anyone move like that before, but it wasn't true. He'd seen it before. Vampires, demons, a few sacred warrior monks, and slayers- they moved like that. Hell, so did he on a good day. But some construction worker in his first class? Not so much.

He didn't worry about Faith. She was strong, fast, and she did this every day in the kempo class. She was blocking punches, spinning off kicks. She was working up a sweat, but she had enough poise for a few choice comments.

"Finn. I remember you, John Boy." She jumped straight up, head near the ceiling as she popped over his attack to land behind him. He whirled to face her. "What say we calm your ass down and talk, Corn-Fed, all right?"

"Nothing," came the dry grunt, "to discuss." He spun a kick towards her head, which she easily ducked under. He was extended and she could have dropped him with a fast strike to the crotch. Didn't seem fair, given their history though.

"You'd be surprised," she told him as he over-balanced and continued to spin around. "Hey, Robin-" she began.

Finn continued around in a 360-dgress sit spin like a figure skater, which brought his long solid leg whistling through the air where Faith had ducked his initial strike. The side of his foot met the side of her head and she flew away from the impact, spinning through the air with a crunch into the wall. She lay stunned for a moment, and Finn stood up to assess the results of his maneuver.

There was a wet cracking sound as Robin's practice sword met a pressure point over Riley's kidney at high speed, and Riley folded.

"Dang it," Finn sighed as he slumped to the floor on his face, too pained and stunned to catch himself, or even catch his breath. He lay there, gasping, cursing himself silently, and he saw Faith unsteadily rise to her feet.

"Damn, what they feed that boy?" she complained, holding a hand to her head and another to the small of her back. "He hits like a ton of bricks. Well, like landing on them anyway."

"Lucy, you got some 'splainin' to do," quoted Robin, looking at Riley lying at his feet. "Care to share what my darling wife has done to Mr. Finn to make him act this way in front of company?" The students had gathered in the doorway, and there was a general hubbub. Some of them had never seen Faith actually touched before, much less dropped.

Faith looked down, and when she looked up, it was with an expression she got from time to time that told Robin there was a long story ahead, and that she was not the heroine in it. She came closer to him, and leaned close to speak softly for his ears only.

"Well, um. Raped him, I guess. Long story." He looked at her, trying more or less successfully to keep the judgment out of his face till he heard her whole story. Marriage was hard. Marriage to Faith was more so.

Riley had heard her despite her attempts at privacy. He managed to roll over and looked at Faith, hate smoldering, jaw set despite his pain. He slowly sat up. Most normal men would be down for an hour with that blow, Robin thought. Great, and she had to piss him off.

"She hurt a bunch of people." Riley's voice did not carry far but they both heard him pretty clearly. "Attacked my friends. Possessed my girl, used me as her chew toy. Ran off. I leave anything out?" His

"So, not a long story," Faith admitted sadly. She held a hand out to Riley. "But hey, you missed the part where I saved the world, and Angel, and the world some more. You know, the good stuff. Promise to not swing for a minute?" He nodded and she lifted him to his feet. Slayer strength or not, he was a load.

"I think we should go somewhere and talk." Robin gathered their consent by eye, and he turned to the class. "Now, kids- show's over. Saturday, Brockway, see Master Chen with any questions."

"Faith, tell me one thing." Riley was looking at her and trying not to lean on her husband. "Did I hear you say Buffy was with Xander, before, when you came in?"

"What? Yeah, they wanted us to run some Diet Coke over to the house…" She and Robin stopped as he slumped against them heavily.

"No, just digesting that a minute. And Xander, my boss Xander, there's a baby?"

"Yeah, Hope Anne Harris. Look, let's go into the back, we'll grab something to drink and talk." She didn't want to push- she knew she hadn't done anything in his eyes to earn forgiveness. But, she also knew that there were a lot of people out there who could pop up and be rightfully pissed at her. She'd had some time to prepare for it emotionally.

Failing that, she was pretty sure she could have Robin tie him in duct tape and drop over a cliff at the edge of town, if need be. Probably keep that for Plan B, she thought nervously as they helped Finn up and moved back to their apartment to begin a short but important talk.

Buffy. Back around. Finn was still trying to wrap his mind around the idea but he couldn't make it gel somehow. It was like putting a double sheet on a queen bed, it looked okay till you tried to make the corners fit. He wished Sam was here, she always knew how to handle things. Buffy and Xander, and they have a house in the suburbs, Riley thought again. And a baby! He knew right away what he had to do.

A few hours later, a bruise welting one side of his face, Riley stood in the church basement with a big cup of coffee in his hand, staring out into the smoke and flickering fluorescent lighting.

"My name is Riley," he admitted to the crowd. "And I'm an alcoholic…"


	10. Part IX

IX.

Buffy, as was her custom, woke after 6 PM and went to see if there was anything to eat. Years of late night patrols had firmly established the afternoon nap in her schedule. She didn't need a lot of sleep, and it wasn't unusual for her to sleep from 4 till 8 AM, then from 4 till 6 PM. Sometimes she would work the clock around, and then she would sleep for a day, 'catching up.'

Between Hope getting up for feeding and changing every two hours and a crowd of well wishers phoning from every time zone, there had not been a lot of peace in the little house in Lago Vista over the last few weeks. Well, not the kind of peace Dawn and Xander were used to. Buffy pondered once again what it would be like to be woken in the night, not for zombies marching on Beverly Hills, not for a vampire stalking the Crown Prince, not even for a Sluggoth demon nesting in the pipes, but just woken because a baby needed milk, or a diaper, or was lonely.

She peeked into the bedroom and saw Xander, still in his jeans, sprawled across the bed and snoring softly. He'd made it a few days, running around taking care of everything when Dawn was down with the baby, then trying to stay with her when she was up. Finally he'd caved in and trusted Buffy to look out for them, and now he was trying to sleep when he could. Seeing him with Dawn and Hope, Buffy knew she was looking at him in some ways for the first time, or at least the first time since high school. It's easy to overlook what you see every day.

Snoring aside, he was a pretty good guy. He worked hard, and he was crazy about Dawn and Hope, and when he was down he got quiet and distant, not loud and hurtful. Buffy was a little jealous of her sister, which was fitting she supposed, given their history the other way over the years. Dawn too was a bit of a surprise though. Buffy went down stairs to look for her.

As she walked down the stairs, seeing the framed photos, Buffy thought about everything that had happened in the last few years. She stopped to trail her fingertips over the picture of Joyce and the girls, the only one that had survived Sunnydale. Now Dawn had the house, the little girl, and the dreams for the future. Buffy was suddenly oppressed by the idea that everyone was growing up around her, and that her own life had somehow been put on hold for the last few years. She wished Willow was around to talk to about things.

Stepping into the waning sunlight, Buffy found Dawn in her favorite spot, on the swing under the grape arbor in her back yard. She had Hope snuggled to her bosom and was talking softly to her. Hope was dressed in a white baby garment of uncertain shape, with soft short sleeves over her pink little arms, and a bottom like a sack that cinched with a drawstring. It was very cute but very practical for someone who needed changing fairly often.

"Is she eating?" Buffy asked quietly, coming up next to them. She saw that Dawn's gown was open in a way that would have been shocking and scandalous to Buffy were it not for the suckling baby. "Wow, now that's a greedy baby. How often is she eating, Dawn?"

Dawn sighed and smiled. "As often as she wants at this point, which seems to be about every hour and a half. She eats for a half hour, sleeps for a half hour, takes half an hour to get cleaned up and settled down, then we start again." Dawn lifted Hope to her shoulder and bounced her.

"Rowwwwp!" Hope said with a blink, then closed her eyes and flopped onto her mother's shoulder.

"That's moja kcerka," Dawn said proudly, then saw her sister's puzzled expression. "Sorry, 'my baby.' I decided she should learn Serbian with me."

Buffy saw a language book and a set of tapes on the swing amongst the baby things. She shook her head. "You are so weird. You know, it might be easier to put that stuff on an iPod, and then you'd have it with you all the time. Willow got me one for my birthday, and I take it everywhere."

"Sounds cool. Have a seat- I'm tired of looking up at you lurking there." Dawn indicated the other seats at the table. They did most of their entertaining in the garden, and the grape vines twining through the arbor provided reasonable privacy at this time of the evening.

"Dawn," Buffy began, and then looked down at her sister's open gown. "Um, you might want to put that away," she said with a blush and a nod towards her sister's exposed breast.

"Yeah, but the air feels kind of nice. My boobs are killing me." She sighed, and fastened her nursing bra. "Kennedy sent some sort of lotion, this herbal stuff her old nanny recommended. It helps but Hope makes a face when I've been using it. I'm hoping when she lasts a little longer between feedings things will be a little easier."

Dawn looked at her sister, and shifted Hope to her other shoulder and gently rocked back and forth a bit in the swing. The sun was going down but there was still daylight left and she could see something was bothering Buffy.

"What's on your mind? Still mad at me for getting knocked up, or are you upset that we eloped?"

"Neither." Buffy grinned a bit. "Both? I mean, not any more, but it was a pretty radical step, both times, you have to admit. I just worried you were rushing things."

Dawn resisted the urge to snap at her sister, or to make a snide remark. It was time they were past such things, really. Dawn began to settle Hope into the seat next to her on her boppy, a horseshoe shaped pillow that cradled the baby and kept her close to Mom without being soft enough to make her smothered or entangled. Dawn watched as Hope stretched her tiny fists out with a yawn, then snuggled back down into a more compact napping shape.

"Buffy, what do you want? Not from me I mean, but in your life. What do you want?" Dawn rocked slowly, and her voice was low and gentle. She hardly seemed like the same girl who used to tag along everywhere with Buffy, or roll her eyes at her sister's every comment.

"How can I answer that?" Buffy said, a little annoyed. "What does anyone want? I want the world not to end, and I want my friends to not be hurt. Who can really say what they want?"

"Xander is still asleep upstairs isn't he?" Dawn tucked a blanket over Hope's lower half, not too tight, and continued her gentle rocking.

"Yeah, dead to the world. I snuck a peek on the way down. He looks pretty beat, but he was up a while talking to Robin. He wouldn't tell me what that was about either." She thought back to the issue of the baby's name. Xander had never been able to keep a secret, not from Buffy. Well, except for his brief foray into Willow kissage back in high school. Oh, and his issues with Anya. And that time… okay, Xander had usually been able to keep a secret, come to think of it.

"I forgot to ask him, sorry," Dawn admitted. "But you asked, 'what does anyone want?' This is it." She gestured around her. "I have my baby. I have my husband who loves me, and I love him so much I still get all girly goose bumps just saying the word 'husband.' We have a good home, and we have good friends. Everyone is healthy, everyone has work to do, and things to learn. The only one I really worry about is you."

"Me?" Wasn't it Buffy's job to worry about Dawn? "I have work, too much work. There are new slayers all over the world. We're still finding them, and it's becoming impossible trying to run everything from London without flying all over like a, um, like a flying all over solving problems person. Okay, lame simile but you get the point. Don't worry about me, I'll keep busy."

"I don't worry about you being busy, Buffy. I worry about you being lonely. You've never been very good at being on your own, really."

"That's not fair. I've been on my own more than you can know. Knowing that every decision I make affects all these people…" Buffy stopped, and looked off into the distance for a minute. "Okay, I guess I do feel it. It was good to get away for a while in Rome, to play. But things are still serious, Dawn. Someone has to walk in the dark so you guys can go on having barbecues and raising kids and living your lives in the sunshine."

"Do you hear yourself, Buffy?" Dawn asked gently, but still persistent. "Do you hear how bitter you are, how angry it makes you? You used to be the light, Buffy, the bright thing that all the monsters feared in the dark. You're letting it get to you, you're starting to be the one that brings the darkness out in the daylight. You need to find your balance again."

Buffy stood up. "I'm glad you got it all worked out Dawn. I'm glad you got your life all squared away, so now you can start fixing mine. I'm sure you are going to do a better job of it than I could ever do, so I won't offer my help."

She turned and walked out, out the gate and down the drive. She knew if she just went, Dawn would be too busy with Hope to run after her. As she walked, she thought about what Dawn had said.

"I'm not the night," she told herself, and she started jogging, deciding a little literal distance from her problems would be helpful. "I'm the light… I'm the day… The night is just where I work… I don't live there…" She ran, and as she ran the sun set over Lago Vista. She ran for about half an hour, and realized she was already heading back to Dawn's house.


	11. Part X

X.

When she got back, Dawn and Hope had gone inside, and Xander was taking out the trash. He stopped, bag in his hand, and looked at her in the dusk.

"Hey, Buffy." His voice was warm but noncommittal.

"Xander," she said. "Dawn lie down?"

"No, she decided she wanted to cook something. We're having someone over from work." He seemed bemused, maybe a little distant.

"I said some things to her, before." Buffy put her hands on her hips and considered. "Not very nice actually. Really I was a bit of a bitch. I think I should go talk to her."

"Well, Hope's asleep, so no yelling." He flashed his grin. "And no slaying in the house. We're pretty firm about that, young lady."

"Yes, okay. Do I need to change before this company comes over?"

He grinned again, and she wondered what was so funny all of the sudden.

"You might want to not stink, yes," he said. "But whatever you think is best."

She went inside and found Dawn slicing fresh vegetables. Neither of them spoke, they just nodded to each other. Buffy took a knife from the rack and began slicing celery. Dawn took a bottle from the fridge and passed it over to Buffy. "This is that dressing you sent when we got married. It's actually really good. We have it a lot, but there should be enough left over for tonight."

"I'm sorry." Buffy sliced and chopped. Dawn stirred something that smelled good in a saucepan and began pouring it over some asparagus. "About what I said before, I mean," Buffy said.

"I know what you meant," Dawn said, still preparing dinner and not much looking at her sister. "This is going to take at least another half hour. Would you do something for me, if it's not too much trouble?"

"Sure," Buffy said, wiping her hands on a cloth. "What do you need?"

"Hope's napping on her pallet in the den. Can you take her for a little walk, so she'll stay asleep till this is done and we have a chance to eat? I was hoping she'd be down at least an hour after that big meal she had but she keeps fussing."

"Sure thing. Let me grab her a blanket though, it's cooled off a little. Did Xander ever tell you what's up with Robin?" Buffy was slipping a light jacket on and Dawn noticed that she had a stake tucked in the back of her waistband. Lago Vista was pretty safe, but you can never be too careful with a baby.

"He wouldn't say. He did mention that he was bringing someone from work over for dinner, and said it should be interesting. He doesn't surprise me much lately because I usually can tell what he's thinking. He's having so much fun I haven't really tried."

Dawn was peeking into the oven at some sort of tenderloins with mushrooms and shallots. Buffy decided she better get a brisk walk in and then clean up before the mystery guest arrived. She kissed Dawn on the cheek and went to collect Hope/

They headed for the edge of the housing development, where there were still some open lots and the streets weren't totally built out yet. As she walked along, the stroller in front of her, Buffy watched Hope, who was nominally awake and regarding her with solemn dark eyes. "Just you and your Aunt Buffy, Hunny Bunny," Buffy proclaimed. Hope promptly made a burping sound and closed her eyes, a little smile on her round pink face.


	12. Part XI

XI.

Riley was not nervous. He told himself that a few times, without conviction. He was not at all nervous or worried, which was why he was walking around a construction site after hours with a penlight, looking for his chip.

He knew that he'd had the chip this morning, during his nearly disastrous conversation with Xander. His boss had been told about the incident at the dojo, and only Xander's cell phone diplomacy had been able to convince Riley to back off Robin and Faith.

It was easy to stay mad at Faith. What she had done to Riley, swapping places with Buffy then trying to use him, it had hurt. It had made his life harder, at the time. But then again, his life had been hard anyway, where Buffy was concerned.

Riley thought again about Sam, about the way she had been impressed with Buffy, and a little jealous, when they had finally met. Sam was the first woman Riley ever really loved without losing himself. His love for Buffy had been self-destructive, possessive, addictive. When it was over, he'd fallen hard into darkness, and only the discipline of the military, of the New Initiative had saved him.

It wasn't till Sam left him, in Panama, that he realized that he still didn't really have any discipline of his own. He'd let others impose it on him. When she left him, he'd crawled into the nearest bottle, still aching from his physical wounds and almost broken from the emotion ones.

He'd never been much of a drinker, and he'd been a bad drunk. Not mean- he just wasn't very good at it. He'd run out of money and sober up, then he'd have to stay sober long enough to get more money and more booze. One day he realized that he was working all week to drink all weekend, and he might as well do that in the States as in the jungle. It was in a hotel in Mexico, on the way to California, that he'd taken a wrong turn, or a right one, and wound up in an AA meeting.

AA had helped Riley realize that he had an addictive personality. Whether it was love, or liquor, or the sweet embrace of death and undeath, he liked to hand over control. If his love was bigger than him, all his actions were excused. If losing Sam broke him, it wasn't a flaw in him, it was the curse of true love gone wrong.

He'd stopped drinking, and taken some work here and there in a resort town in Mexico. He'd tried to get back into school, without success. Maybe it would come now, maybe not. Either way, his start at A New Dawn was a good one. He felt in control of his decisions, and of his life.

Of course, then he'd found out Xander was his boss. Worse, he'd thought that Buffy was Xander's wife. Trying to be noble and congratulatory to Xander during their meeting that morning, he'd instead been a complete ass, and only the mutual realization of Riley's colossal misunderstanding had saved things.

Riley searched the ground where he and Xander had sat talking that morning. He must have been fingering his one-year chip, a nervous habit he'd picked up over the last few weeks since meeting Faith again. And now it was gone. Gone like so much in his life.

"Okay, stop taking pity, and start taking control. Find the damn chip, get cleaned up and get over to Xander's before it's too late," he ordered himself. "Fourth step- moral inventory. Time to step up, Finn."

He heard his voice, so harsh and raw, in his ears as he muttered to himself, looking all over the site for the small bronze chip. He knew his voice would never recover: the damage had simply been too severe. He did wonder, though, if the voice in his head would ever change to match the voice in his throat. If it did, would that mean something profound?

"Got you!" he hissed happily, spotting his chip where it had fallen, not a yard from where he had been when Xander had laughingly explained about little Dawn, well not so little now Riley supposed. He'd spent much of today practicing, trying to figure out what to say to Buffy when he saw her again.

He heard something, someone on the street, coming towards the framed in home in which he stood. Dousing his light, he let his eyes adjust to the gloom, and started moving towards the street, his chip back in one pocket and his flashlight slipped into the other. He moved out, seeing a form approaching at the edge of his vision, and hearing a voice he remembered very well.


	13. Part XII

XII.

Buffy walked along the quiet street, looking at the half finished houses rising like dinosaur skeletons on one side. Xander's construction company was finishing out the neighborhood, and she was pushing her niece along in her stroller, getting some exercise in after a day spent mostly at her sister's, watching the baby.

"House bones, Hunny-bunny," she noted to her niece who was sleeping in the stroller. Hope had been fussing at the house, trying not to fall asleep. Three minutes into their walk and the poor girl was out, but Buffy kept walking, unconsciously patrolling the partially finished neighborhood. Old habits.

"That's what your mama always called houses before they got the walls on. House bones." Her voice trailed off. There was someone moving quietly through one of the unfinished homes. A flashlight darted furtively around, then swung out towards them, attracted perhaps by the sound of her voice.

"Hunny-bunny," Buffy said softly, "what say we get you home, okay?" She turned Hope's stroller as fast as she dared without waking the baby. She reached behind her to the waistband of her pants and made sure she had a stake accessible. "Okay, home we go…"

A dark figure, very tall and looming large, had separated itself from the house and was moving towards them. In the gathering gloom of evening, Buffy realized that though one side of the street contained completed homes, many of them were still empty. There weren't enough windows lit or porch lights to give her a clear view of the figure pursuing them. The stroller hindered her, and whatever was chasing her was getting closer. Soon she would have no choice but to grab her niece and run.

"Wait, stop!" came the raspy voice from behind her, cruel and soft as a snake in the leaves. It was closer than she had thought, and she realized she had only a moment to act. She stopped, jabbing the brake on the stroller and whirling around, stake in one hand, a cross in the other. She was ready to do serious violence with the twitch of a muscle.

"I thought it was you." The figure stopped running and was stepping slowly towards her, at the edge of her vision in the dusk. "It's been a long time, but I knew I'd see you eventually. I've been practicing. I wanted to be sure I was ready for this moment."

She looked back quickly to make sure the stroller was locked down and safely far back from the street on the sidewalk. She knew she had to make this fast and get Hope back home. She turned back to her pursuer.

"Got to hand it to you, you creatures of the night sure can talk. Is this the part where I'm all weak-kneed and beg you not to hurt the baby? Sorry, I tend to just skip that part, and jump to the part where I kick your ass."

As the street light behind her buzzed and flickered, coming on with the arrival of night, Buffy jumped forward, catching the dark figure in the chest with both feet and driving it to the ground. She landed straddling its chest, and raised her stake, ready to strike. She stopped, looking in shock at the boyish face and the heavily scarred neck, the warm hazel eyes, the mop of dark blond hair.

"Well," he rasped, a voice she now recognized despite what had obviously been serious damage to his throat some time not too recently, "that part wasn't exactly like I rehearsed it. Hello, Buffy."

She stared blankly, her arm still raised with a stake over his heart. She slowly lowered her hand, but seemed to forget she was pinning him to the sidewalk. "Riley? Riley Finn?" she asked in confusion.

"In the flesh, mostly. Sorry about the voice, I know it takes some getting used to…" He flexed his arms, which were pinned by her knees, and she found herself rising up off of him. He certainly hadn't gotten any weaker over the years since she'd last seen him. "If you're not planning on staking me, I suppose a hug might not be out of the question?"

His grin was disarming, and his voice, though quiet and rough, had a certain warmth even after all the years. She stepped back, returning her stake and cross under her jacket. He rose up, over a foot taller than her, and brushed off his long-sleeve t-shirt and jeans. Aside from the scars around his neck, he looked good. A lot more weathered maybe, but really good. She felt herself blushing, old reactions from older days.

"I uh, I need to get the baby home." She realized she'd almost forgotten her niece in the rush of the attack, the shock of seeing Riley.

"Sure. I need to get back to what I was doing too. See you around?"

"No!" She had the stroller unlocked and made sure the baby was still sleeping.

"Ah. Okay, I don't want to intrude or anything. Nice getting clobbered by you, Buffy. Like old times." He turned away, rubbing the back of his head where it had struck the sidewalk.

"Riley!" she called to him. He turned back. "No as in, no you will not be seeing me around. You will be walking us home, and telling me what the hell brings you here, and what happened to you, and how is Sam, um, and anything else I am forgetting right now because I am so completely wigging that I almost staked you like that."

He smiled, and it was the old boyish smile, but there were lines at his eyes that weren't from laughter, too. He moved closer and peeked into the stroller. He looked at Buffy and said, "Miss, I'd be honored to walk you nice ladies home. Shall we?"

They began the half-mile walk back to Dawn and Xander's house, as the stars came out over Lago Vista.

"Actually, I have something to tell you," Riley said to Buffy as they walked.

"What's that?" Buffy looked up at him. She had to look up at a lot of people, but with Riley it was always worse. He was a big boy, and she'd spent a lot of time standing very close to him looking up.

"I think we're headed the same way. Xander invited me over for dinner. It was supposed to be a surprise for you."

"Well," said Buffy "I couldn't be more surprised if I was on fire. Let's go torture Xander with something dull, shall we?"

Riley laughed, and the harsh remnant of his laugh, sounding after way too long in a throat no longer shaped to form it, was the saddest thing Buffy had heard in years.

"So," she said, unwilling to break the friendly mood but not able to help asking, "are you going to tell me where Sam is? Or am I supposed to not ask?"

"Yes, but not now. And No, but not tonight."

She looked at the night, and the stars, and the warm red windows and cool blue light of TVs shining out of the homes along the road as they walked. It seemed like a fair deal. There was a bigger, harder world out there, beyond the streetlights, but not now. She'd have to face it again, but not tonight.

"Fair enough," she told him. "Fair enough."


	14. Part XIII

XIII.

Dawn saw Riley to the door, smiling broadly. Although he'd always been distracted by Buffy and the ups and downs of their relationship, Riley had always been good to Dawn and tried to look out for her. She'd been sad when he'd left, back when Dawn was still in Junior High.

"You sure you don't need a ride back to your car?" she asked him. "I'll have Xander drop you over there, really."

"No, it's no trouble, Dawn." He bent over and kissed her on the cheek. "It was really good seeing you again, and dinner was great. You've picked up some real skills. I don't think I've eaten like this since I was back home- I'll need the walk back to the truck if I'm going to sleep tonight."

"Okay, well you just call me any time okay? I mean, whatever happens with the job or Buffy or whatever, okay?" She was trying not to sound too needy, but there weren't a lot of people in Dawn's life who went away that ever came back, and she wanted to not lose track of him.

"That's a deal." He grinned, and it was almost the old giant goofy grin. He waved as he started down the sidewalk, heading back towards his Suburban parked a mile or so away.

Man, is he tall, she thought, looking after at him. You really notice how petite Buffy is when you park her next to a guy like that.

"And speaking of," she said to herself, heading back into the house. "Where is sister, O sister mine…"

Xander and Buffy were sitting in the back yard, next to each other on the swing. Xander had Hope sleeping in the crook of one arm. Buffy was talking to him, leaning towards him and trying to keep her voice low to not wake the baby.

"Okay, so what on earth made you think bringing him here as a surprise was a good idea? Do you have any idea how awkward it was for me? And what's the story with him working for you. I just don't buy for a second that he happened to apply for a job with you."

Xander rocked the swing gently. "Last point first- it seems from my talk with him that he completely applied for the job not knowing about me, or Dawn and I or anything, some weeks back. He knew a guy in the Peace Corps, just like he said, who told him to check us out. I know the guy too, we did some Habitat stuff last year. Good guy."

"As for the surprise, you should have seen me calling him in for his sit-down. Apparently he learned a few weeks back that A New Dawn was my company, but he's been avoiding me. Then he met Robin and Faith at one of the kendo sessions. I guess he didn't feel like answering a lot of questions, which I guess is understandable."

"Why shouldn't he? I mean, why did Sam leave him, and how did they go from fighting demons for the government to building a dam in Panama? And the scars, and his voice…" Buffy shuddered dramatically. "He sounds totally creepy. I almost staked him when he came running after us."

"It's pretty obvious some horrible things have happened to him," Dawn said, settling down across from them. "But you said he met Robin and Faith, did they tell you how that went?"

Xander laughed softly, and Hope cooed and gurgled before settling back to sleep nestled against him. Xander closed his eye and rocked some more.

"Well, seems like he missed the whole 'Faith goes to jail and comes out a better person' episode of our saga. She walks into the dojo, and Riley freaks out. From what Robin and Carlos told me, he shook off the rust pretty quick and laid her out."

"Riley took down Faith?" Buffy asked, impressed. "You're kidding, right?"

"No, that pretty much matches with what Faith told me this afternoon when I called," Dawn said. "After Xander told me who was coming for dinner, I figured we better call Faith and get things straightened out. She and Riley did not part on the best of terms. She says he got in a good shot while she was trying for a peaceful solution."

"Huh," snorted Buffy. "That's usually Faith-speak for 'I got distracted and he dropped me' as I recall. Still, taking down a slayer in her own dojo… I wonder what's driving him."

"Buffy, are you totally opaque? Nothing gets through?" Dawn was a little exasperated. "He obviously still has feelings for you. I don't know what happened with him and Sam, but I think you better find out. And if you're not interested in him, you have to let him know soon and be firm about it. None of that eyelash batting stuff you do just to keep in practice."

"I do not flirt just to keep in practice." Buffy looked at Xander, who seemed to be having trouble controlling his laughter. "Tell her… Xander? Oh, come on. Do I really do that?"

Hope started to fuss, and Xander stood, and offered her to his wife. "I figure she must be starving, sweetheart. This is the longest she's gone in a while."

"Thank the goddess," Dawn said, "I'm so full I'm soaking my pads."

"Okay," Buffy said, waving her hand, "Too much information, Dawnie."

"Don't be such a sissy, sissy." Dawn opened her top and Hope began nursing greedily. "You know, they talk about the whole natural nurturing wonder of nursing, but when she's locked on and really eating… it's kind of a rush."

Buffy was turning pale, and Xander was watching his wife intently.

"You know," he said, "there's something really beautiful and erotic watching you do that. It's like this primal force, you know, the creator of life and the sustainer of life." He titled his head to one side, as he often did when trying to get depth perception since he lost his eye. "Plus, you've never been more beautiful. I mean, I think the whole exhausted parent thing is some sort of evolutionary defense mechanism to keep us from humping like crazed weasels until the baby's old enough to sleep through noise."

"Hello, inappropriate much?" Buffy asked in disgust. "Sitting right here? Aside from the entire Eww factor of you two having any kind of physical relationship, she's still nursing Xander. You're gross in ways I cannot begin to catalog."

"Hey, zip it Buffy," Dawn said with a broad grin to Xander. "I think it's great that he still finds me attractive right now. I plan to enjoy it while I can- there's no way my boobs can stay this size forever the way Greedy Gus here eats." She shifted Hope to her shoulder, and started coaxing a burp from her.

"I give up," Buffy said. "I'm going to go take a bath. Try not to say anything disgusting till I'm gone, okay?"

She went up to draw her bath. As the water ran, she looked down into the back yard. Through the leaves of the grapevines that climbed the arbor, she could see Dawn, her baby now nursing on the other breast, leaning her head on Xander. He'd moved and put an arm around her, and the three of them were snuggled together on the gently rocking swing. They looked completely at peace, and Buffy turned away. She felt like a voyeur seeing them sitting together so tranquilly.

She slipped her clothes off and settled into the bath. Even the guest bath had a deep tub, suitable for long soaks or for washing crowds of small children. Xander had really done a job with the house. As she closed her eyes and smelled the bath salts in the bowl by the tub, Buffy's mind drifted back.

She was sixteen, and they had just moved to Sunnydale. She'd been getting ready for bed, and heard something from her mother's room. She'd knocked and heard sniffling and nose blowing from her mom's room, then her mom's clear strong voice calling for her to come in. She'd peeked around the door and seen her mom, in her bathrobe, sitting on the edge of the bed.

"Mom, are you okay?" Buffy had asked. She'd asked that a lot, right after her parents split up, but Mom had been doing better, she'd thought.

"Sure honey. Go on to bed." Joyce Summers had been a woman with a certain dignity even with a red nose and puffy face from crying.

"No, something's wrong." Buffy had gone and climbed over her mom's bed to her side. "Talk to me. Is it something I can help with?"

Her mom had laughed, a single sharp sound without humor. "Would you believe it's the tub?" She'd put her arm around Buffy.

Buffy had snuggled against her, feeling the worn terrycloth of her mother's favorite bathrobe tickling her cheek. "What did it do? Has the tub been saying mean things to my Mom? Because I could give it a talking to if you think it would help."

Her mom had laughed again, warmer this time, and they'd fallen back on the pillows still snuggled together. "No, honey. I was just getting ready to take a bath, and I remembered the big tub your father put in the house in Hemery."

"Do you still miss Daddy, too, Mom?" Buffy had known that things were a lot harder for her mom than for her and her sister.

There'd been a long pause, and Buffy had wondered if she was going to get another 'someday you'll understand it but for today you just need to accept it' speech. But then she realized her mother was crying again and trying not to let Buffy see.

"Well, I sure miss that tub." Joyce had said, and they'd stayed together on her mom's bed till Buffy had fallen asleep. She'd woken the next morning in her own bed, with no clear recollection of getting up and going to her room.

Buffy looked around her at the tub that her mother would have loved, and thought about the tableau she'd seen out the window of her sister, Xander, and her niece. She realized she was crying again, and tried to blame hormones from the baby. Must be sympathy hormones. Sure, that's what it is, she told herself, as the tears ran down her cheeks and mixed with the scented bathwater.


	15. Part XIV

XIV.

Riley Finn stood in the shower, and the needle spray played back and forth over his face. They motel's limited supply of hot water had not lasted, and the water now prickling at his face and chest felt like ice after the warmth that had come before. He closed his eyes and leaned his head against the tile, letting the cool spray play over his shoulders and back.

He considered the run he'd been having, the run of bad luck, or maybe bad preparation on his part to deal with what life was throwing him. From the day he'd crawled out of a bottle in Mexico after Sam left, he'd had an arc, a path to follow. He'd come back to the States, and found work.

It wasn't the Initiative, it wasn't saving the world, but he wasn't the same guy who'd strapped on the body armor to be all he could be those years ago anymore either. His world had gotten darker, and darker, and darker. Even something as simple as meeting Xander and Buffy again was a chance for humiliation, embarrassment, and pain.

A grin crossed his face for a moment, and then faded. When he smiled too much, the scars on his neck hurt him, an ache that spread from the corners of his mouth to a knot of tension headache at the base of his skull. He thought for a moment about the mental image he'd had, of Xander Harris and Buffy Summers living as newlyweds out in the suburbs. It was almost as shocking to discover that Dawn Summers was the one who was the new mom and wife, but at least he'd figured it out during his meeting with Xander and hadn't said anything too foolish.

As for Buffy, well, she'd kicked his ass more or less, but he'd grown used to that. His biggest problem with the slayer had always been that she didn't need him, didn't need his strength because she was stronger, or his experience because she had more, or even his love, because… Well, he'd never figured out why she hadn't loved him, or so he thought till he lost Sam.

After Sam left, left him lying on a cot in the jungles of Panama with his torn throat healing but his heart broken, after she left he'd had a chance to think about why Sam had loved him, and why Buffy hadn't.

It was easy to think that Sam was his equal, whereas Buffy was more, and that had been all the difference. But the more he recalled the loving marriage he'd had, he realized that the main difference was that Sam had never needed anything but his love, and had taken that and more. Buffy hadn't needed him, and trying to give more to her had soured everything.

This sort of maudlin thinking could go on for hours he knew. It was time to stop, or he'd wind up drinking over his problems with a few strangers in a bar. There are men who have vices and set them aside in times of crisis. Riley was not one of those men- he was the cold turkey hardcore addict type. Bad drink, bad drugs, bad women, he had to stay away completely or let them control him.

But then there was Buffy. She'd said she'd enjoy seeing him again while she was in town. He'd said yes. Why had he said that? Was it weakness, unable to say no to the one who got away? Or was it strength, the knowledge that he wasn't that lovesick fool any more and nothing she could do to him could compare to the hole in his heart where Sam belonged?

"Okay, you're doing it again," he whispered, inaudible over the sound of the shower. He turned off the spray and dried off, and then got ready for bed.

As he lay in the dark motel room, he said softly, "It's not a date or anything. Just seeing an old friend. You're talking to yourself again, Finn. Yeah, I keep telling myself I need to stop doing that."

He fell asleep quickly, but just as quickly, he was standing in a hut in Panama. There was a low bed with mosquito netting draped around it like a fantastic fairytale canopy. He saw himself on the bed, lying with Sam. But in the way of dreams, he also saw himself standing outside the picture, standing in a white turtleneck and slacks and too perfect and clean for the world that held that jungle village in it. He saw the young couple on the bed, tossing together in passion.

He called out, "Hey in there, people are trying to sleep!" but his other self and Sam did not heed him. There was a giggle, and a deep rumbling laugh, and a very fine and graceful feminine foot came kicking out the bottom of the bed, pulling the netting from the bed frame. Sam's voice called out, "Hey that tickles! Cut it out, Riley Finn you hear me? Stop that right now!"

She shrieked again, and he laughed and they began moving in a way that Riley, standing outside looking in, could not watch. After a terrible long brief moment, it was done. The figures on the bed lay still, but as he parted the netting, the Riley standing outside saw that the Riley lying within was covered in blood, and had bandages all over his throat.

Sam moved, and as he looked he noticed that she was wearing her fatigues and had a medical kit in her hands. She bent over the bleeding Riley and whispered to him, "They're taking you to the clinic in Espirito Santo, Riley. Can you hear me? You're going to be okay. As soon as I get everything taken care of here I'll be following you, no more than a couple of days. Don't worry baby, everything's going to be okay."

He wanted to reach to her, to call out to her, but his voice bubbled and gurgled in his throat. He looked down in horror as the pink froth of blood flecked from his mouth across the white turtleneck. He reached out to her, but he was too weak, and his arms rose just slightly. He watched on, unable to breathe or move, in growing panic.

He saw Sam, sleeping in their bed beneath the white canopy of netting. A breeze moved the netting and it billowed and flared, coming away from the bed at the foot. As Riley sank slowly to his knees, blood pouring from his mouth, he saw Sam, still asleep, smack at her neck with one hand. As she rolled over, still asleep, he saw the pinprick of blood at her neck and the remains of a mosquito, a ruin of black specks mixed with red on her tanned skin.

He reached out, actually raising his arms, and with all his will summoned a shout. As the blood from his mouth spattered the white gossamer netting, Riley awoke.

He was sitting in his bed, in the motel in Lago Vista. He was sitting up, his arms raised before him in supplication. He was covered in a clammy sheen of sweat and his pulse was pounding in his temples. For a moment he was still in Panama, and his eyes darted around, madly searching for the familiar point of reference.

The air conditioner kicked on with a clatter followed by a soft hissing. His arms slowly lowered, the muscles in his shoulders and neck unknotting. He knew where he was, and he knew how he had come to be there. He held his head in his hands, and he cried.


	16. Part XV

XV.

Faith, the vampire slayer, regarded the man facing her on the springy floor of the Woods' dojo. She was breathing heavily, almost as much from excitement as from exercise. Her hands were at her sides, one foot slightly turned towards her opponent.

A few steps away, Riley Finn, the junior electrician, was looking at Faith. Sweat was running into his eyes, stinging them, but he didn't dare take the time to wipe it away. Faith was too fast to give her that opening.

Robin Wood and the students of his kendo class watched from the sides of the room. Most of them had taken a few kempo classes from Faith, usually to demonstrate to them that they were not as good as they thought they were. Only Xander and Carlos had ever managed to land a solid blow on Faith, though Breckinridge had gotten close the previous lesson.

"Not the same cat here as in your class, huh?" Xander whispered to Robin. Both men had noted that in kendo, Riley seemed reluctant to attack, although his form was excellent. His defenses were first rate, and if anything he was getting better as he shook the rust off in weekly sessions at the dojo. In the kempo classes, weaponless hand to hand taught by Faith, Riley was less restrained.

One on one with Faith, he seemed to lose his reluctance entirely. It was as if some subconscious signal was telling Riley 'here is someone you can hit.' Although he'd not brought her down since the first surprise meeting in the kendo class, Riley had managed to push Faith pretty hard. Today, he was putting on a clinic- how to not get your ass kicked by a slayer 101.

Faith decided she needed to push her advantages of supernatural strength and endurance by launching another attack. Despite her smaller frame she was stronger than Riley and should be able to wear him down by getting in close. That was the theory anyway. She launched herself at him, all feet and elbows in a blurringly fast series of attacks.

Riley did not go for the obvious blocks, or even the riskier dodges. Instead, he selected some kicks and punches and allowed them to hit, rolling or falling with them as much as possible. Faith's success in hitting him brought her too far forward, her weight too shifted from center to recover when he fell back and jackknifed into her with both feet.

Suddenly she was flying through the air, twisting like a cat to regain her orientation so she bounced off the wall feet first, landing with a little flip like a gymnast coming off the high bar. Riley's roll back had continued in a backwards summersault, and he came to his feet in front of her, also facing the far wall. Without looking behind him, he spun around to his left and threw a punch at Faith's throat.

She brought both arms up and trapped his fist between her forearms inches from her throat, and she grunted with the effort of stopping him. Instead of trying to pull back, he followed through with the other fist, an overhand right that used his superior reach to come over her block and connect with the bridge of her nose.

There was a crunch, and she rocked back on her heels. Riley immediately relaxed and as she released him, he caught her in his arms. She was staggered, blood flowing into her mouth from her nose. He went to steady her, and she threw a jab that connected with his eye.

It was far from her best shot, with almost nothing behind it. Still, catching him with his hands full and flatfooted, it was enough to ring his bell a bit. As Robin and Xander closed in, waving back the other class members, both Faith and Riley began the long slow motion fall to the floor. Robin caught Faith as her head was about to strike the mat, and Xander broke Riley's fall by the simple expedient of being crushed beneath Finn as he collapsed in a heap.

"Faith, are you alright?" Robin was checking her eyes and trying not to touch her nose, which was flattened at an uncomfortable angle across her face.

"I'b okay, Robid," she told him thickly, blinking hard. "I thigg by dose is broke. It is, idd't it?"

"Um, yeah baby. Why don't we get you to the doctor, okay? Or at least let Master Chen take a look." He raised her slowly to a sitting position, and she looked in alarm at the growing pool of blood in her lap.

"We cad't," she told him, "thigg aboud the studetts. Got to shake this off."

He knew she was right. A big part of any martial arts training is the infallible mastery of the teacher. Only someone who has been seen to progress to those heights can ever get away with besting the Master. If she wanted to keep these students in their proper place until they were trained right, she needed to walk this off.

"We need to set that, baby," he told her quietly, indicating her nose.

"Got it. Bake sure I dod't fall dowd, okay"? She rose to her feet, trying not to lean on him. The students had edged closer, and a few were dragging the stunned Riley off of a weakly protesting Xander.

"Okay, class," Faith said, reaching up to place a hand on either side of her nose. With a sharp push, her nose settled back into a somewhat normal place with a crunching crack. "Okay," she repeated more clearly, eyes watering, "I think that about does it for today's exercises. Who can tell us where Mr. Finn made his mistake?"

"Fighting you in the first place, Sensei?" asked one of the students, looking at the shiner already forming over Riley's eye as he was helped to his feet.

"Wrong, but thank you for your confidence Mr. Dixon." She was dabbing at her face with a towel one of the students had handed her.

"He dropped his guard after he hit you, Sensei," observed Carlos.

"True, but he was already in range of a kick or a reverse. Come on, guys, ladies, tell me where his plan broke down. Any one?"

"It was before the fight began, Sensei," Finn said, shaking off some helping hands. His voice had not only its usual scary quality, it was sad as well. "The student's mistake was not caring about protecting himself and focusing too hard on his target." He reached up and gingerly touched his face, feeling out the extent of the damage.

"Very good, Mr. Finn," she admitted. "The lesson here class: hurting your opponent does very little good if you sacrifice yourself to do it. There's always another chance, if you are around to take it. Believe me, I know. We aren't training for suicide attacks here, people. Strike and recover, not kamikaze, got it?"

"Yes, Sensei," they chorused.

"Very good. Class dismissed. Mr. Finn, hold back a sec?"

He regarded her calmly, and she closed to with a hand's-breadth of him and said softly, "Are we finished, Riley? I done you wrong before, and we both know it, but this has got to be over or one of us has got to head out, on two feet or on a gurney."

"We're finished, Sensei. Unless you're going to keep sweet talking me with your husband standing right there." He rolled his head around with a crack, and shook the kinks out of his long arms. "I've taken this as far as it needs taking, I think. Suits?"

"Five by five, Finn." She clapped him on the arm, already feeling her face beginning to heal. "Do me a favor would you? Come over tomorrow night if you can. There are some things I'd like to talk to you about, say around 8?"

He thought for a moment. He was supposed to meet Buffy for something in the afternoon, but he expected to be back by 7. "Sounds good. See you then."

As he headed towards the locker room to clean up, Finn waved a goodbye to Robin that might have been mistaken for a salute. Robin watched him go, and turned to his wife. She was a bloody mess but had a grin on her face he had seen before.

"What's up, little pup?" he asked her, taking her arm as they headed back to their residence to get her cleaned up and changed.

"That boy got some issues, lover. Like, People magazine has fewer issues, you know? Still," she dabbed at her nose with the towel, "nice to get a little workout isn't it? Oh mother, this thing stings."


	17. Part XVI

XVI.

Buffy watched the highways rolling by out the window of Riley's old Suburban. Her mind was not on the scenery so much as on her feelings. It felt weird, being with Riley, being alone with him. She was tempted to call Willow, or talk to Dawn. She wanted to handle her own feelings, but she knew she had a history of feeling first and thinking later, and she really wanted to handle this like an adult.

In the driver's seat, Riley stole a glance at his diminutive passenger. Her hair was straight, and pulled back off her neck. To any other man, any other day, she'd have been beautiful. To him, she was simply there, lovely but not particularly desirable. He wondered if the part of him that used to love was dead. It felt dead. Still, he was glad she was with him.

He had brought a picnic lunch, and they had driven to a park in another town, where no one knew them and they knew no one. She had not complained or even commented on his choice, but they had both shared a smile over the memory of another picnic they had shared a long time ago, when they had just met at UC Sunnydale.

The conversation had flagged, though as they passed those happy memories into unhappier times. He avoided talking about Sam, which left out several years of his life. She didn't talk about her new work, building the Slayers' Council. She had told him about Xander and Caleb, the minion of the First who had put out Xander's eye. He'd told her about the pool at work, the bets as to how Xander had lost the eye, and they had agreed it was too good to spoil with the truth, even for those who would have believed it.

He'd told her they had one more stop to make, and asked if she minded a bit more of a drive. She'd told him no, of course not, and they began their journey along the sunlit highway. Just as she looked around, and realized where they were headed, he slowed the car and took an exit.

"What are we doing here, Riley?" she asked as they pulled into a scenic lookout, a few hundred yards from the crater.

He got out of the car, and walked around to her door. He opened her door and lifted her down, and together they walked to the edge of the railing. Next to them, a small plaque on a stone pillar described the scene in cold terms.

"Near this spot, in 2003, the town of SUNNYDALE collapsed into a sinkhole with great loss of life and property. A sudden exodus that preceded the event, for which no believable explanation has been uncovered, spared many citizens. The disappearance of the town was the largest event of this type since the original Spanish mission on this site was buried by an earthquake in 1937."

They both stood for a while, regarding the hole in the ground, so large you could scarcely see across it through the heat shimmer and the dust which still lingered in the air all these years later. There was something about it that still touched her. It was the beginning of her life in many ways, the beginning of her life as Buffy Summers, not Buffy the vampire slayer.

Still, it was the end of many things too. She thought of her mother's grave, and those of so many friends and strangers, even foes, all sucked into the choking mouth of Hell during her last battle with the First Evil. She remembered the library where they had planned their patrols, the house on Revello, even Angel's old apartment, where she had given herself to passion for the first time.

Still, no mater how powerful the memories, you can only stand looking at a giant hole in the ground for so long before it gets a little depressing. She took Riley's hand in hers, and she realized he had been staring across the hole for a long time, staring into some far horizon that was entirely in his head.

"Panama?" she asked quietly. Even with the cars whooshing by on the highway a few yards back up the road, there was something about the little scenic lookout that prompted quiet, like a cathedral or a library. She saw him nod, and his hand squeezed hers briefly.

"Tell me what happened to you and Sam, Riley. She didn't leave you, did she?"

He closed his eyes, and she knew he was still seeing whatever it was he'd seen before, something long ago and far away. He put both hands on the railing and she felt him draw away, into the remembering place.

"We had been hunting for a Cajili demon, a kind of demon monkey that drags small children off into the jungle, the stuff of real nightmares. Turned out there was just the one, and they're pretty easy to track with night vision. We decided to take a couple days off in the village before we went back for our next assignment."

"They wanted to celebrate, and they brought us fruits and some sort of rum punch they brew there, very festive. We both noticed how poor they were, and how rough it was. They had lost their fresh water supply and were capturing rainwater in barrels tied in the trees. There was a little stream but it needed a decent dam to make a pool where they could collect the water."

"I was ready to go back, but Sam and I had never really had a honeymoon, we'd gone right back to work after the wedding pretty much. We asked for some leave, and we stayed in the village."

He leaned out, and the breeze carried the dust of Sunnydale to his nose as he spoke. "I'd like to say we made all the difference, we brought modern methods and high tech solutions to the backwards jungle. Really, I was just another strong back, and my contribution was mostly carrying logs from the clearing to the dam site."

"One day, I was late. Sam and I had slept in, and the morning got away from us. You know how it is, don't you?"

Buffy nodded and told him, "Nothing matters but the person you're with. Time passes differently for you and for the people outside."

"Exactly. I was embarrassed- I felt like everyone would be laughing at me, would take one look at my face and know why I was late. I don't know now why that worried me, but at the time it seemed very important. I went running along the path alone, trying to catch up with the others."

"I don't remember the attack, and I've tried. When the men from the village found me, I'd been dragged off the path into the brush, and I was losing a lot of blood. We'd seen jaguar footprints by the stream a few times, but they aren't known to attack men, generally. I guess I got lucky, because I was a little too big to swallow once it had me."

"They got me back to the village, and Sam gave me first aid. I was going in and out of shock I think, but I pieced it all together after pretty well. Sam got me stabilized and arranged to have me sent to the clinic in the next village. She was going to get in touch with the Initiative and arrange to have us brought home. She was going to make sure the jaguar was gone, and that they'd be all right with us gone. She told them she'd be a day behind us, maybe two, and they took me to the clinic."

"It was almost two weeks later that I was clearheaded enough to ask about her. They had to use a lot of morphine, keeping me under most of the time. By the time I shook off the morphine she was a week overdue."

His hands were white where they gripped the rail, and Buffy wanted to reach for him but didn't know what to say. There was more, a lot more, and it came washing out of him. She realized he had never put the entire story together before. He'd kept it in brightly painful pieces and now they were stringing together in a diamond necklace of loss.

"They think it was yellow fever. It's treatable, hardly ever kills anyone, and we'd all had the shots for it from the government. Of course, not everyone responded to the vaccine. Did you know that? I didn't. It's not something you think about. You get the shot so you don't get sick. If you do get sick, you go to the doctor."

"She got sick. She had chills, a fever. Aches and pains but nothing you could point to as severe. She was worried about me, and the first day she felt better, almost a week after I left, she headed out."

"That's how it got her. She wasn't better. She was just in a phase where she had no symptoms. Somewhere on the trail, she got sick again, and sicker. Her liver shut down and she started getting yellow eyes, a yellow cast to her skin. That's where the name comes from."

"Before the man she was with could get her to the hospital, she was in total system failure. When you shock your liver and your kidneys, the body stops processing wastes. You choke in your body's own poisons and you die. It's called toxic shock. At the end, you're too sick to know how painful it is. That's what the doctor at the clinic told me. I think it was supposed to be comforting."

Riley stood for a long time, then opened his eyes and looked at Buffy. "Thanks," he told her. "I'm sure that was a lot of fun for you. I should do this with all my dates."

She leaned close to him. She planned on kissing him. It seemed right. She wanted to do it. At the last moment, she shied away and hugged him, a little awkwardly, instead. He was tense and unyielding at first, but eventually he relaxed in her arms, and hugged her back briefly before they separated.

"Thanks," he rasped with that disconcerting new voice of his.

"When my mom died, I didn't really need you," she told him, pulling back to look out herself over the desolate crater. Not entirely desolate she noticed, as a few plants had begun to peak out of the rubble around the edge of the hole.

"Gee, thanks?" he said, not sure where she was going with this.

"I needed to be strong, to take care of things. It's part of what being a slayer is, Riley. You take care of people and you handle problems. If I had let you take care of me, I would have had to admit it was too big for me."

"But it was," she said, turning to look, making sure he understood. "It was too big for me. By the time I realized how far things had gone out of control, there was no way to let you back in."

"I understand. I didn't then, but I do now," he told her.

"No, you don't get it, Riley. I don't want to make that mistake again. Everything in my life, every fight, every sacrifice, led me to where I am now… I reached the point where the slayers, all of us together, we're bigger than the fight. We closed a Hellmouth, we fought Evil itself and drove it back. And for the last few years, I've been trying to figure out where do I go from here."

"And what have you decided?" He resisted the urge to put an arm around her, to comfort her. If he ever held her again, he wanted it to be choice, not habit.

"I don't know. But the thing is, looking at that crater, I realize that's what I was fighting for- to reach a place in my life where it's okay to not know what to do next." She shook her head. "This is all coming out wrong, it's not what I mean to say."

"Say what you mean, Buffy. Say it rough if you have to. Later on if anyone asks I'll tell them you were eloquent, pretty near to poetry."

She laughed, and then made a sour face at him. "I can't believe this, you're making me laugh over my mother's grave after telling me stories about your dead wife. You sure are a charmer."

"I have certain gifts," he admitted. "But you were saying?"

"Right now I want to go home, but where is it? In that crater? Back in London? I think my sister may be smarter than us all- she's made a home, and now she's making a family. She's taken her world and made herself a place in it. Maybe it's time big sister did the same."

"I hope you're not asking me to get you pregnant and build you a house, because that's just not something you ask an ex on your first date, back in Iowa."

"Is this?" she asked him suddenly serious, "Is this a date? Or are we just two friends who have that in common, that once we were lovers in a place that doesn't even exist any more?"

"We're friends, Buffy. As for more, let's enjoy being friends for a while. Maybe you could stay in town for a while longer, and we could see each other again." He watched her face, gauging her reaction.

She thought about it, and wondered what her friends would say. She knew what her sister would say. He'd always been Dawn's favorite.

"I'd like that. I guess it's time to head back to Lago Vista isn't it?"

"Yeah, I have to get back. I'm meeting someone later." He looked at his watch and realized they better hurry.

"You really do know how to flatter a girl, Finn. Is that something they teach in Iowa, or is it extensive government training?" She got into the car with a helping hand from Riley.

"Your tax dollars at work." He went around and got back in the car. "I have to meet Faith tonight. She wants to talk to me about something."

Buffy grimaced. "What is it with that woman? Xander, Angel, you, Robin, she takes all my admirers."

He regarded her for a moment, and then pulled back on to the highway.

"Okay, one of those guys is married to her. One is married to your sister, and I married Sam… I'm thinking maybe you're overestimating your drawing power over these guys to begin with, Buffy."

"Nonsense, you are all my thralls, helpless to resist my feminine wiles unless I choose to release you." She had her nose regally in the air and was doing the Queen Wave to passing motorists.

He laughed. "Very well, Your Highness. Anyway, I think Faith just wanted to clear the air. We've sparred in class, but we haven't actually talked much about what she did to us, and to what extent I'm willing to put that behind me. Still, she's married to one of my boss' best friends, and she's part of your world too. I can't very well go on being friends with Xander and Dawn if she and I are going to throw down every time we meet."

Buffy was looking out the window again, and mused aloud, "Is she? A part of my world? Sometimes I feel like my world is still on hold, like I've been coasting since Sunnydale. Being the slayer used to be my whole world, and now that it's not, nothing seems to have come up to take its place."

Riley reached out and patted her shoulder, his long arm stretching across the SUV's wide cab. With the sun backlighting her and her face turned slightly from him, she was beautiful. He'd forgotten, actually put out of his mind till just then, how pretty she really was. He realized he was staring.

"This is the part where I should be saying something, isn't it? And yet, I'm not," he said. "Whatever happened to smooth talking, say the right thing Riley?"

"Oh please," Buffy laughed softly, "your first words to me were something like 'Hey, ow.' It was a week before I realized you really spoke full sentences." She reached up to where he'd patted her shoulder, and took his hand. He hadn't realized that he'd left it there.

"In all fairness," he pointed out to her, "you had just dropped heavy books on my head. I'm a lot more eloquent when I'm not concussed."

"Oh yes, you're the psych grad student. I believe that qualifies you to nod and say 'hmmm' when I tell you my dreams right?"

"Good Lord, Buffy, any more of my famously non-pithy quotes rattling around in there?" He was a little uncomfortable with the way she was holding his hand, but it felt too nice to pull away. Besides, it was just hand holding.

"Not really. So, if I do stay in Lago Vista for a while, could I see you again?" She was facing out the window still, but her eyes were closed and her mind was obviously elsewhere.

"I imagine so. I'm a pretty big guy, hard to miss." He was going for flippant but it came out more sarcastic. He didn't have the vocal range of expression he'd had before the attack. "Sorry, yes. I'd like to see you again."

"Not to put pressure on or anything, but how about tomorrow?" She turned back to him. "Xander is taking Dawn and Hope to meet his mom in LA, and that's a reunion I'd rather miss."

"I can only imagine, having noticed he never says anything about his folks any more, and that man can still talk about anything endlessly." He took his hand back and put both hands on the wheel. He was hoping it looked like he needed both hands to drive, and not like he was pulling away, which of course he was. "Tomorrow isn't really good, actually. I have to go look at some apartments in the afternoon. Can't stay in the motel forever, even at those prices."

"What about tomorrow morning? I could cook, well, okay, no I couldn't. I could buy breakfast. There's this great breakfast place Dawn has been nagging me about. They make blintzes…" She realized she was pushing. She felt like something important was happening, and she didn't want another week to go by again between meetings with Riley.

"Um, I was going to church in the morning, and then I have a thing." He remembered the last time he'd seen her at church. Well, he'd been there for church. She'd been working.

"Oh, okay." She reached toward him, but he was too far away for her to reach without leaning, and she dropped her arm and looked out the window again. They rode in silence for a while. "I could go with you," she added suddenly. "To church I mean. If that's okay."

"You sure? It's pretty boring stuff, generic middle class protestants with not a vampire slayer or a demon hunter in the mix." He tried to picture her with the rows of matronly society types and overwhelmed soccer moms who frequented his church.

"I'd like that. If it's not intruding, I mean I don't mean to invite myself along or anything if you'd rather not." Of course, she was doing exactly that, and they both knew it. She was thinking of a way to back out, to not make him have to tell her no.

"No," he said. "I mean it's not intruding. But after, I'm going to be busy for a while, with a thing at the church." He considered what to tell her, and decided he should just say it.

"There's an AA meeting, we usually meet in the evenings but there's some of us that meet right after services. I'll be there an hour, maybe an hour and a half." He waited for the reaction, for the questions and the possibly feigned sympathy.

"I can help with coffee," she told him, "or if it makes you more comfortable, I can bring a book and read outside, since it's supposed to be nice tomorrow."

"Really?" He was surprised. He couldn't picture Buffy at a smoke filled AA meeting in the church basement. "You're okay with that?"

"Why wouldn't I be?" She looked at him, and this time she did lean over to rub her hand across his shoulder for a moment. "If you need to go, I need to let you, right? Besides, you're not the first person I ever knew to go to AA."

"Oh." He realized he probably should expand on that. "Oh, okay."

"My dad," she told him after a moment. "Dawn doesn't know, or I think she doesn't. I wasn't supposed to know. But when he and my mom were first separating, he went to a bunch of meetings, part of their counseling. I never knew if it did him any good or not. Last I saw, he was still drinking, but it didn't seem to be wrecking his life either. I don't have strong feelings about the program either way. If it helps you, good for you, I guess. It's no big."

"At this point I'm qualified to say 'hmmm' I think," Riley said thoughtfully.

"I do want to ask you, and if it's not my business just say so, but I was wondering, how long have you been sober?"

He watched the road disappearing under the hood of the big SUV for a few moments. "One year, one month and uh, thirteen days."

"Hmmm," she quoted. She went back to looking out the window, and they didn't say another half dozen words the rest of the drive. When they got back to Dawn and Xander's house, she invited him in.

"Sorry, I really need to run if I'm going to get my laundry and still make it over to the dojo." He stood, looking down at her even as she stood on the front porch step. He wondered whether he should kiss her.

"So, pick me up here tomorrow? What time?" She wondered if he was going to kiss her. She wondered if she wanted him to.

"Is a little before 10 okay?" he asked. She nodded and he went to give her a hug. She hugged back, and he decided that a kiss on the cheek wasn't out of order, just a friendly gesture to a pretty girl. He turned his head a bit to kiss her goodbye.

She hugged him, and she decided that after the day they'd had, he deserved a sign that she cared about him. Nothing sexy, she decided, just a friendly gesture to a handsome boy. She turned her head a bit to kiss him goodbye.

They managed to bang their noses into each other slightly, and they met briefly lip to lip in an awkward collision. They both pulled back, and she was pretty sure he was blushing. He turned away.

"So, um, tomorrow," he said.

"Yes, see you then Riley." She turned away as well, and stood looking for her house key. As she opened the door, she heard him start his Suburban and pull away. She closed the door behind her and leaned back on it for a minute, her eyes closed.

She could feel his arms around her, and smell that really nice smell that men get when they use good soap and then sweat just a little. She replayed the feel of his lips on hers, and darted the tip of her tongue across her lips briefly, giving herself over to the moment.

Her reverie was broken by a gurgling coo, and she opened her eyes to see her sister, baby on her hip, standing by the stairs. Dawn was eying her critically.

"Okay, Buffy," Dawn said. "You are so busted. Do not even begin to deny it." She raised a hand to wave off the denial Buffy was trying to think up. "Nope, nope, not listening. La, la, la, not listening. I'm going to go get Hope down, and then you and I are going to chat. Get some tea and meet me out back."

Buffy shrugged and sighed, and went to get tea for her sister and herself. She wasn't sure where Dawn had learned the command voice, but it really worked. By the time Buffy could think of good, honest reasons to not tell her sister anything, they were sitting around drinking their second glass of tea and she'd told Dawn everything.

She realized that this was something she'd never really had, a heart to heart with Dawn about something important to her. She'd had Willow for her young crushes and her affair with Angel. After that, she'd taken to keeping everything inside and making her own decisions, often the wrong ones. It felt good to just talk, and Dawn was a good listener.

"So," Dawn finally asked as they heard Xander pulling the car into the drive, "do you love him?"

"Love him?" Buffy was taken aback by the sudden question. "No, I don't. I mean, I'm really enjoying being with him, but that's just... Maybe there's more there, but it's way early to tell."

"Good," Dawn said, getting up to go greet her husband. "Beause if you didn't know that, I was going to have to lock you up, and you're getting too old for me to keep making all your smart decisions." She winked, and left her sister laughing on the swing in the back yard, a glass of tea in her hand.


	18. part XVII

XVII.

Riley sat in the pew, his collar scratching his neck and his face burning from the razor. He tended towards stubble and open collars these day, so every Sunday was a bit of a shock to his system. He was just barely too tall for the pews in the church, which led to frequent minor knee bumping and the occasional squirm in his seat.

Next to him, Buffy was thumbing idly through a bible, paying scant attention to the sermon of the day. He couldn't blame her. Pastor Lloyd normally did a solid if somewhat predictable job, but today he seemed distracted and a number of his points seemed to trail off. Riley tried to arch his lower back a little without looking like he was stifling a yawn.

Buffy crossed her legs, showing ankle but not much more in her surprisingly demure dress. He hadn't been sure she owned anything like that, but she looked entirely at home in her long, pale yellow gown and girly shoes, with a little clutch purse for keys, credit card, and stake. Her hair was down and brushed or combed so it seemed longer somehow. She was polite and poised and everything he could have asked for in a church date.

He was bored silly.

When he had quit his drinking binge after Panama, he'd been reluctant to return to the church. He'd felt he wasn't worthy, and that his faith had been broken somehow and could never be fixed. As he'd talked to his sponsor in AA, he'd realized a lot of things about his character and his actions over the years.

He had an addictive personality, borderline obsessive. He liked the discipline of the military, and one reason was that he liked to have order imposed on him. He lacked the willpower to do it himself. He liked relationships where he was clearly the stronger or the weaker- even Sam had been his C.O. When he fell in love, he'd fallen hard, and when it had gone wrong, both times, he'd had extreme and self-destructive reactions.

He looked at Buffy again, and thought that she knew a thing or two about self-destructive relationships. Angel. Spike. Even her relationship with him had contained fundamental conflicts, and he'd always wondered if he had been darker, more dangerous, if she would have been more attracted to him.

The irony was, he was darker now. He had a past, and scars, and his spirit had been bent and broken and patched back together since those days. And now, the more he thought about her, the more he wondered.

"Why are we here?" he whispered to her.

"I thought you wanted. And you have a thing." She was looking through Revelations. Probably not much there to alarm her, considering.

"No, I mean, you and I, in general, why are we here?" This wasn't coming out right. He was decisive in his speech. He didn't use a lot of fancy metaphors or slang. He didn't talk as colorfully as Buffy and her friends. But then, he got around Buffy and misspoke, mixed metaphors, and generally sounded like an ass. It was a good indicator to him that he stilled cared about her.

"I just wanted to see you again. I'm not sure why you're here." She was looking confused and slightly alarmed. This was not the place for a long conversation, and they were starting to get some looks from the Junior League crowd.

"Can we go for a walk or something? I want to talk to you," he asked her. She looked at the door a few rows behind them. It would be tough to be inconspicuous making a break for it.

"Okay," she decided. "Follow me."

She stood, and very gracefully and quietly began slipping past a few people on their row towards the door. Riley rose and tried to follow as smoothly, but still drew some disapproving glares as he left. Pastor Lloyd had just finished fourthly, and was moving on to fifthly and he never noticed them go.

Outside, Riley took Buffy's hand and led her out of the church and into the lot next door, where the sun was shining in the treetops and a fountain was splashing over some poured concrete 'boulders.' Riley loosened his tie and stretched his long legs for a moment. Buffy was regarding him with curiosity.

"What's going on? You're all serious moody."

"I'm sorry. I'm not sure if I remember church being better because today was an off day, or because I hadn't really been listening till this morning." He shrugged. "Either way, I'm sorry. That couldn't have been fun."

"It was okay. It was nice seeing a bible without pictures. At my place, when there's a holy book it usually has some prediction of my death or a picture of the beastie that's trying to kill my friends."

"I suppose that is one benefit of the Presbyterians. Very few friend-killing beasties there." He began to amble towards the little fountain, and she followed. He was wishing he could take his shoes off and walk on the grass, but you don't do that by the church in the suburbs.

"So what's on your mind, aside from the rhetorical failings of preacher Joe back there?" She tossed her head back towards the church, and the sun caught her hair.

"You're very beautiful," he said, without really thinking about what he was saying. After he said it, he realized that there was nothing to say after that. He started walking again, doing a circuit around the fountain.

She followed, and after a moment she said, "I have no response to that."

"Me neither," he told her, reaching his starting point in front of the fountain. "That wasn't what I meant to say. Well it was, but it wasn't."

"Well, thank you and not, then, respectively." She turned and saw people coming out of the church. "Well, we better get back if you're going to go to your meeting."

"I suppose so," he said, looking back at the church.

"Yeah," she said, hands on her slim hips, looking at the dowdy little church.

"Will you do something for me, Buffy?" he asked suddenly still looking at the church.

"Sure, as long as it at some point involves you repaying me with chocolate."

"Let's go check out those apartments now. I want you to come with me, give me the feminine perspective. As long as you promise not to get me drunk, I can miss this one meeting I think." He turned and looked at her.

"Are you sure? Because whether you're sure or not, that sounds way more fun so my answer will be yes." She looked up at him, noticing how he looked really happy for the first time today. "I just ask so I can plan how guilty to feel later."

"Don't bother," he told her with a grin. "Let's get out of here. I think the first apartment is in New Haverbrook."

"Cool," she said, taking his hand as they hurried towards his car. "I hear they have the monorail there."


	19. Part XVIII

XVIII.

Buffy was having the most fun she'd had in a long time. She explained to Riley, who would have settled for something affordable with high ceilings in the first complex if not for her guidance.

"Shopping for apartments is not unlike shopping for the right dress. Does this one suit my taste? Does that one work with my lifestyle? I'm more of a winter- do you have this in white?"

He laughed, a raspy horrible thing that still jarred her every time. She wondered if she would get used to it. She hoped so, because that would mean he was laughing around her a lot.

"Also, accessorizing is key. This master bath is right, but that kitchen screams hospital cafeteria. This patio is perfect but it's totally on the wrong townhouse. It's like putting Prada on a pig."

She caught him still smiling and poked him in the ribs. They had just pulled up to the last place on his list. It was a new property, where lofts had been carved out of some rehabbed warehouses in Ogdenville. "Hey," she warned him, "This is serious. You never know when the next one might be…"

He pulled open the smaller door set into the old loading dock doors, and they went in. She stopped, and looked around at the huge space, with sun streaming in the high windows and hitting a stripped but solid hardwood floor.

"…Perfect," she said softly. "This place is huge. How is it in your budget?"

Riley was double-checking his notes, but he knew this property pretty well. "It's an urban renewal grant. The mayor gave Xander some sort of special zoning exemption and they've been contracting these out. It's a lease deal with an option, and employees at the company can get it on payroll deduction. Normally you need a year, but Xander said he'd, um, you know."

Riley was a little embarrassed to take favors from his friend, but Xander had a very simple policy: save my life, or my friends' lives, and you get the good rates. Work hard to make people's lives better, or even to just build good homes, and you get the same treatment. It probably made for good business. It certainly made for loyal employees.

"Take it," Buffy said, walking to the middle of the large open space. She could see a bathroom and a kitchen on opposite sides of a partition towards the back, and a loft space above. The rest was completely open.

"You could wall this off, or just use furniture to define the space. Willow would die to see this place. It's gorgeous."

"Thanks. It's my favorite, but I wanted to make sure. Carlos and his fiancée have a place on the other side of the development. They're moving in next month, I think. It's still getting carpeted and everything."

"Carpet, on this hardwood? He must be insane. You need to get this sealed and polished, trust me. Just like the floors at my mom and dad's old house. Dawn and I used to skate in our socks." She stopped, thoughtful.

"Is something wrong?" Riley moved up to her, and stood a short distance away. It would have been nice to reach out, to touch her, but with all the thoughts of this becoming his new home, it seemed like a bad idea. It was too intimate- if nothing else ever came of his renewed friendship with Buffy, he didn't want to have his home be a reminder of anything awkward.

"Do you miss Iowa?" The question caught him off guard. He frowned as she turned and looked up at him critically.

"You could have gone home," she said, "after Panama, or even now. But you haven't."

"I'm not ready." He wanted to explain it to her, but the thoughts were still jumbled in his own mind. "Iowa is always the place where everything is all right. If I'm still this messed up when I go there, will I get better?? Or will I lose the place in my mind and my heart I can go to where things are still okay? Does that make any sense?"

"You don't want your life to mess up your life, you mean." She was still looking at him.

"Exactly, and yet, still confusing. You sure you didn't finish college? You could go far with reasoning like that." He grinned a bit, recalling her sometimes insightful, often distracted work in the class he'd assisted.

"Riley, would you kiss me?" The question wasn't teasing, or demanding. Her voice was soft but not demure. It was a simple request for action, or possibly for information. Would he kiss her?

"Yes." His mouth was dry and he was sure his hands and feet were suddenly too large for his body, making him an object of clownish ridicule. Funny the things you think of, times like this, he mused.

She moved a step closer to him, and he took a half step, closing the distance. She was so much shorter that he'd have to lift her up or bend down, usually both, to kiss her properly. He reached out to gather her in his arms, and found himself acting on some deeper instinct. He put his arms around her and hugged her close, too close for kissing, so her face was against his chest and her hair was tickling his chin.

He held her for a long moment. It was painful and pleasurable. It was memory, but memory overlaid with grief and longing and loss, memory made sharp with the knowledge of how rare and precious memory is.

"What are you thinking?" she asked him after the moment had stretched to the limit, the point where that moment had to become something else because there was just too much emotion in it to sustain it any longer.

"Nothing. Everything. It doesn't matter." He continued to hold her, and then she pulled back slightly. He let her go, resting his hands on her hip and her shoulder.

"Aren't you going to?" she looked down, unsure of what she was asking or unsure of his answer, or both. "Kiss me, I mean?"

"Absolutely," he replied without hesitation. He looked at her. "Oh, you mean, right now?"

She scowled at him and started to turn away. "Very funny."

"Buffy," he called to her, taking a long step and getting beside her as she turned. "Do you know how long I've been thinking about kissing you?"

"How long?" She was wary, but turned back to him.

"One year, one month and fourteen days." He let the number sink in, saw realization dawning.

"Ever since you got sober." She considered this. "Why didn't you call me, or say something? You had to run into me in Lago Vista? How can I believe you?"

He shrugged, his big shoulders rolling. "I wasn't ready. For the longest time, I thought that thinking about you was a way to run from pain, to avoid living in the present. I still thought that when we met, but I can't do it any more."

"Do what?"

"Pretend I don't miss you. Pretend I don't care about you. I can't pretend that even when I was married and loving Sam every day with all my heart, I still missed having you in my life. I got over leaving, and I got over you not loving me. But here you are, and here I am. I think about Sam, and I miss her."

He turned and looked at the dust motes dancing in the beam of sun coming in from the high windows in the loft. "I'll always miss her, and there's a hole in my heart where she belongs. But that doesn't stop me from wanting to be with you any more than leaving you did. I imagine you must have the same kind of memories from your fist love, or worse."

"So, when you loved me, you thought I didn't love you, you left. And now, when you worry that you can't love me because of Sam, you came back?"

He hung his head. "My life is so not right. But yes, I worry that I can't love anyone the way I did before, but it doesn't stop me from thinking about it."

Buffy thought about what he'd said for a moment. "I think we're starting to repeat the same ideas here. I don't know if there is anything to be gained by talking about this more, do you?"

"I guess not," he said. "Thanks for listening though. Thanks for, you know, hearing me out."

"Riley? I don't mean we shouldn't talk about this ever again," she told him. "I just mean for today, we've introduced a lot of things into the mix. We should take time to sort through it all."

"Oh. I thought you meant we should drop things and not talk about it any more." His face was pensive, his voice flat and soft.

"I saw that. Hence the clarification."

"Yeah. Thanks."

"So, um, are you going to lease this place?" She looked around again. "It's a little old, needs a little work, but it has amazing potential. The possibilities for metaphor alone are obvious."

He laughed. "Yes, I noticed. I'd be a total fool not to jump at this chance."

He moved towards her again. He was very close to her, and could smell her conditioner or shampoo, something fruity with a hint of vanilla.

She looked up at him, looked at the big hazel eyes, the wrinkles at their corners crinkling as he looked back at her. She leaned in, and there wasn't any space between them. She craned up to raise her face to his. Her eyes started to close. He was so close her eyes would cross if she kept them open trying to watch him.

"Are you?" she asked him. "A total fool. I mean?"

"Absolutely," he replied. He closed his eyes and decided that it would be better for his state of mind to not kiss her, to let things settle. Then he kissed her anyway. State of mind is overrated.

It wasn't a grand passionate kiss, nor was it a top ten profound life moment kiss. It was warm, and soft, and gentle. It was slow and deliberate, and when it ended there was a slight sigh from each of them that told them it could have continued, and some day it would. It was not a kiss of destiny, or even of certainty. It was a kiss of hope and of promise. At this point in each of their lives, it was enough.

--fin(n)—

_Author's Note: This concludes "The Night and the Day" and with it, my post-_Chosen_ trilogy of Buffy works. Thank you kind readers for all the comments and reviews over the years. Way appreciated, no wiggin._

_-ReverendKilljoy_


End file.
